How Johnny met Sammy
by Lone-ranger1
Summary: Will be a series of Dates between John and Sam starting with Valentine's Day. Might be some McKeller in later chapters. Comedy level is high but not absurd. Part 3 of olympics up! Synopsis for each chapter at beginning. Rated T just in case.
1. Cupid Lives in Pegasus Too!

_**Cupid lives in Pegasus too! **_

_**(Or I can't be arsed to think of something cleverer.)**_

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**Setting:** Atlantis

**Main Characters**: John Sheppard, Samantha Carter

**Other Characters:** Random Atlantis folk.

**Timeframe:** Beats me, I guess Season 4 sometime.

**Type of Story: **Humour, mild romance

**Synopsis:** Sam is busy as hell with new paperwork, and with Valentine's Day approaching, Rodney and Co. set up a mini carnival for the city. John decides to ask her to it and loads of hilarity ensues. Not exactly a 'Ship' fic, but it could be considered "pre-ship'. I'd say this is bordering on a crack fic but I kept it pretty realistic to the characters (I feel anyway) Mostly John and Sam centric, but others make appearances.

**Author's notes:** I don't have a specific time frame for this. Some of it is a bit stupid but I think it's fluffy and funny enough to merit the time I spent on it. Having gone out last night I just felt like writing a Valentine's Day fluff humor piece as I had a blast last night. I personally have nothing against Sparky, but it's been done to death so I've got Sam in charge instead. Feel free to replace her in your mind along with images of Liz raising her eyebrows in the patented _**"WeirBrow"**_ manoeuvre.

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Sam sighed, yet another mission report that listed a planet as uninhabited or strategically useless. It was getting hard enough to supervise all the goings on in the city. But having to actually make reports on it all for the IOA on a monthly basis was getting annoying.

She had just gotten the reply from the IOA regarding her last report; she had the nagging suspicion they waited 2 weeks to reply just to annoy her into making as many corrections and changes they wanted to the city in just the 2 remaining weeks instead of the entire month.

It was almost 1:15pm, well beyond her usual lunch time, she had nearly finished the pot of coffee she'd made in the morning and realised with a sad sigh that she was barely done half her work for the day,

A knock made her raise her head to the doorway; she raised an eyebrow in curious surprise as her second in command, as Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard stood with a sarcastic grin on his face.

"You know, it's healthier to eat 5 or 6 meals a day instead of one giant meal at the end of the day."

Sam smirked, and huffed in amusement.

"Oh really? Does that mean you've got the time to do that?"

John walked in; he was carrying a platter that looked like it hid some food underneath a metal cover.

"I make the time, why… it'd be the end of western civilization if I miss one while I'm on base!"

Sam leaned back in her chair and chuckled as she watched the Colonel. John used his foot to bring one of the cushioned chairs up to her desk and set the platter down.

"I ask because I'm still waiting on your report for how our new marines from the SCC are doing, I'd hate to find out you've been neglecting your work just to sit back and digest."

John smirked, and put a small computer pad that he pulled out of his shirt pocket on the table.

"Good thing I wore this shirt today."

Sam leaned forward her eyes intent on the platter.

"That for me?"

John made a sarcastic indignant look.

"Didn't I just say I eat 5 times a day? This is my third."

Sam gave him a cold stare; her eyes said more than her razor wit ever could. John finally cracked and chuckled.

"But… seeing as you haven't had a chance to escape this glass dungeon you call an office, I brought enough for two."

He lifted the platter cover, revealing a pair of chicken parmesan on buns with a salad next to it as well as a pair of Jell-O cups. Sam mused happily.

"Why John, I never knew you could be such a sweetheart. Thank you!"

John chuckled.

"Neither did I, but Teyla mentioned seeing you still in here when she was walking around and I figured you'd still be here. McKay wanted this last Jell-O cup but I swiped it before he could get his hands on it."

Sam chuckled.

"Gunning for a promotion?"

John shook his head, smiling.

"And have to actually sit and write? Screw that. Let's eat."

-----------------------------------

Sam lay back on her chair, nursing the last bit of coffee she had brewed, John had his feet up on the small stool in front of him as they digested their lunch. She took advantage of the lull to get a better report of how things were going on the military side of the expedition.

"So how're the new AR teams doing?"

John shrugged.

"Well, Lorne's liking his new Captain, and Major Teldy is liking having her own team now."

Sam nodded,

"I bet she is a pair of hardass marines and a bonafide doctor? I can't tell you how many times I wished for a doctor on SG1."

John chuckled and stretched his arms.

"Aren't you technically a doctor?"

Sam scoffed.

"I don't think knowing how a black hole distorts time is going to help me with a bullet wound."

She yawned and stretched her neck; caffeine had long ago lost its effect on her. John tilted his head looking at her.

"You work too much you know, Hell _I_ work too much so I can only imagine what it's like for you."

Sam shook her head as she laughed, she leaned her head on her hand against the armrest.

"You try explaining to the IOA why you requisitioned an extra supply of anti-histamines, filter paper, and double the amount of coffee most bases our size use."

John was about to answer when he did a slight double take.

"Double?"

She nodded.

"Double."

John laughed softly.

"You think we should start charging Rodney for it?"

Sam got up and stretched her back, ready to get back to work.

"I'm thinking of it, it certainly would cut back on some of this paperwork."

John got up as well, catching the sign that it was his time to leave. He leaned on the side of the wall.

"Well, even the busiest of us has to relax, Rodney had some of the civilians set up some recreations for the next scheduled day off next week and I think you'd get a lot out of it if you'd join me."

Sam turned her head to John, curious as to his intentions.

"Colonel… did you just ask me out?"

Usually when she asked something so blunt and to the point like this it would intimidate men, she was expecting him to act sheepish and explain that it was just a friend thing. Instead he stood his ground and grinned.

"You could call it that, I'm going regardless and I really do think we'd have fun."

She smiled wryly, impressed with his conviction.

"Aren't you worried that people will start talking?"

John scoffed.

"They'll talk regardless; lord knows there's enough topics about me."

"What if Keller won't give me the day off?"

John stared at her.

"Are you kidding? She'd jump at the idea of you taking time off."

"I guess… well…."

"Every minute you stall is another 90 words on that page."

Sam mulled it over quickly. She figured there wouldn't be much harm as long as they kept things civil. Besides, she did feel like it would be fun.

"Alright, as long as I get the day off we'll go. When is it?"

John had moved over to the doorway with the empty platter and turned his head around.

"The 14th, Valentine's day."

Before Sam could say anything in protest, John interrupted.

"Don't worry, I might win you a teddy bear but there's no tunnel of love on this base so I don't think the staff'll make much sport out of us. I'll see you later Carter."

Sam felt like laughing, it had been a while since she'd been on an actual date and even longer since she'd celebrated Valentine's Day. She'd already accepted though and got the feeling that things were not going to end well. She managed to get one last razor out as he left.

"Right, Well don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you!"

She decided to bury herself in her work; if she was going to take a day off she was going to make sure all her work was done first.

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She couldn't decide what to wear, it wasn't chilly out and it wouldn't be appropriate to go in her typical uniform. She wished she could check the Atlantis cameras to see what John was wearing so she could dress accordingly. She finally decided to go casual and went with jeans and a light blue shirt. She let her hair out of her typical ponytail and straightened it in anticipation. Donning a light brown leather jacket she felt like she was back on Earth.

It was only 10am, and John had said he'd pick her up around this time so they could have plenty of time for the games the civilians had put up. A lot of the staff had joined in and volunteers were manning the pavilion they had erected on the East Pier. Even the Daedalus had decided to stop in and many of the crew were milling about, enjoying the shore leave.

Sam finally heard the knock on her door; she let out a deep breath and waved the door open.

John stood in front of her, wearing a pair of dark blue denims and a black t-shirt, over this he wore a spring leather jacket. His hair was in its typical spiky formation, but he smelled a little nicer than usual.

"Colonel."

"Colonel."

They both tittered a bit, it was a little awkward but John didn't let it ruin his frame.

"What say we drop the rank for today? Start fresh?"

Sam chuckled.

"Good idea… Hi! I'm Samantha Carter!"

John laughed as he picked up her beat.

"And I'm John Sheppard, I'll be your escort and company for this evening. Are we ready yet?"

Sam nodded and shut the lights off.

"Lead me kind gentleman."

John couldn't take it anymore and started laughing.

"Wow, Gentleman, I've been called a lot of things but rarely that."

Sam chuckled and gave him a smile.

"I don't doubt it."

Sam turned to shut the door, and when she turned back, John had his arm out in a gentlemanly pose. She couldn't help but laugh.

"John?"

He got an irritated look on his face.

'Well you did call me a Gentleman, shouldn't disappoint my date 10 seconds out the door should I?"

Sam smiled; this might turn out to be fun after all. She hooked her arm in his and they started walking down the corridor.

"So John, what made you decide to ask me of all people?"

She knew there were plenty of women on the base that would love to be in her position right now, but she'd never say that to his face. She still worried a bit that some awkward moments might present themselves. John replied in his typical confident tone.

"Well I could tell you that it took me weeks to build up the courage, that I spent countless hours in front of the mirror practicing the way I'd say it…"

She gave him a curiously amused look, his look back told her to let him finish.

"I could say that I'd planned the entire thing, bringing you lunch, joking around… I could say all that, but the truth is it was just a spur of the moment thing so I'm not going to tell you any of that."

She smirked and gave him a small shove, feeling thoroughly teased.

"Good to know."

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John was struggling not to laugh, he'd been perusing around the booths that the staff had put up and had frozen when he saw it.

Radek Zelenka was sitting on top of a plank that was suspended above a big pool of water. He looked miserable dressed up in swim trunks and no shirt on. John was torn between hilarity and disgust as the man was a lot hairier than he'd expected him to be. Radek, seeing him, shook his head and muttered.

"Yes yes… get it all out, that _kraavo_ Rodney is going to pay for this."

Sam, who had taken a moment to get a pair of drinks for the two of them, nearly dropped them when she saw one of her chief Scientists sitting precariously on the plank.

"My god, what are…? How did Rodney convince you to do this?"

Before Radek could answer, Rodney's voice came in from behind her.

"Because I've offered him a week's worth of uninterrupted lab time without my supervision!"

Rodney took a few steps closer to Radek and cupping his mouth with his hands, spoke loudly and clearly.

"Not that it'll matter much! Any big projects automatically go to me anyway!"

Sam felt bad, Radek was a big help and very rarely did Rodney treat him properly, but she knew the man could take it and ever since being trapped with the Czech in a transporter, she felt almost dirty to get involved. And not dirty in the good kind of dirty.

"Vyser si voko!"

Rodney, ignoring Radek's cursing and wave of his fist, reached out and grabbed a baseball from the pile in a basket in front of the tub.

"Feel like taking a chance? Each of these balls have a number on them, and at the end of the night, the winning number gets to throw the ball for a chance to dunk him. Of course if they miss, I've got this."

He pulled out a remote from his shirt pocket, and grinned gleefully. John chuckled and reached out to take the baseball from McKay's hand, Sam made a sound in her throat showing her disapproval. John turned to her and gave her a pleading look.

"Oh come on! When am I going to get this chance ever again?"

Sam smiled politely, and decided to throw John for a loop.

"Ladies first."

She reached out and plucked the ball from Rodney's hands, both John and Rodney looked at each other for a moment before chuckling. Rodney looked at them both for a moment, as if realising.

"You had me going there Sam… So are you two here together or….?"

Sam felt a tinge of blood rush to her cheeks, Rodney loved to gossip and she had to be very careful about her words. While she was thinking, John decided to answer in her stead.

"Why yes Rodney, as the leaders of the expedition we need to work, and if it comes down to it even play together, which leads to my final point, what games did your guys set up?"

Sam wiped the proverbial sweat off her brow, She'd never truly believed Rodney when he came to her quarters to… well she didn't really know how to describe it other than awkward, but there were plenty of moments in the past few months that made her uncomfortable to be more sensual around him. John thankfully never gave her the same impression.

Rodney, seemingly satisfied, nodded and pointed out a few places.

"Well, there's a ring toss that way, a plate smashing thing over there, a ring-the-bell-by-hitting-it-with-a-hammer over there, as well as a few other random games over that way, not sure what those are. Botany set them up."

McKay added some distaste to the word Botany and shuddered. Then perked up remembering.

"Oh yeah, there's also a shooting game down at the end of the pier, you know Marines, can't finish a holiday without shooting something."

John and Sam chuckled and thanked Rodney; a young engineer frantically came up to him and tugged on his arm, he reacted as if he were being attacked and jumped away.

"Jesus! Don't sneak up on my like that Parsons, I'm liable to take a swing at you!"

John stifled his laugh, Sam also held her giggle. A punch from Rodney wasn't intimidating. The young engineer frantically explained that there was a problem with the naquadah generator powering the booths and their equipment and he was the only one who wasn't immediately busy.

"I'm always busy Parsons, but I guess I'm the only one qualified to do this sort of thing… Go go… I'll be there in a minute."

Sam, feeling her obligation, spoke.

"I could give your guys a hand if they want, I did help design those generators.

McKay waved his arms in a negative response, having mastered the art of talking with his hands.

"No no no… enjoy yourself Sam, god knows you do enough for us. Don't do anything you're going to regret _Captain Kirk_ or you'll have to deal…"

John gave Rodney a serious stare, the kind that made Rodney wonder if he should finish his sentence, he finished with a defeated tone.

"… with her."

Sam chuckled, glad to see McKay knocked down a peg.

"Yes, he does know."

She mockingly gave John a very slight hug; she was amused to feel his arm stiffen at her touch. John managed to keep his composition though.

"Yes Rodney, I think I'm just starting to realise how much danger I'm actually in."

McKay laughed, and was shaking his head as he walked away. Sam was proud that she'd managed to tease John back. He gave her a sidelong glance.

"That's probably the first time you've really surprised me."

She smiled slyly to him.

"Won't be the only time."

John chuckled and took the drink Sam handed to him.

"What'd you get me?"

"Iced tea, I don't think we should drink even if we're off-duty."

John nodded.

"Yeah, maybe next time."

Sam pinched him in the back, eliciting a slight wince on his face.

"Ow."

"Don't assume too much, it's only noon and the rest of the day is still coming."

John smiled and leaned over to put his arm around her shoulders.

"Oh, well what do you say we get started then hmm?"

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Sam fingered the weapon and got used to its weight. She wasn't used to firing shotguns but this wouldn't be the first time. Against the bug-form replicators shotguns were very effective.

She pumped the slide, and put her finger on the trigger. She turned to look at Lorne who was operating the skeet machine.

"Alright Major, whenever you're ready."

Lorne nodded, and spoke before he launched.

"Remember Colonel, these skeets are high velocity, let me fire one so you get used to it before you fire, Ready?"

She nodded, and aimed.

"Pull!"

Sam didn't tell Lorne that she'd gone skeet shooting with her Father when she was young, and had gotten very good at it.

She wasn't surprised at the speed of the skeet, most marines were crack shots after all the training they were put through and needed a serious challenge.

It took her only a moment for her inner gunner to take over, she pressed the trigger and felt the recoil go through her shoulder, slightly painful, but nothing she wasn't used to.

Her training was rewarded with the sound of shattering clay, the pieces falling down on the ocean.

Only 2 people in the crowd behind her were unsurprised. She however was a bit surprised as who they were. Sheppard and Ronon.

"That's a good speed Major, just remember next time I'm on it to bump it up a bit."

"Yes… Ma-am."

She handed the shotgun back to Lorne and went back to where she'd been standing. John smiled and chuckled with Ronon in the crowd. To his side a younger captain grudgingly handed Sheppard a wad of bills. He walked away muttering to himself. Sam gave him a slightly incredulous look.

"You bet on me?"

John nodded without hesitation.

"He started it, His exact words were if I recall… 'No way she'll make that shot, Remington doesn't make Pencils'."

"Oh really? Well then, long as you spend some of that on me we'll keep this quiet."

Ronon chuckled and patted John on the back.

"Good luck buddy."

He took a few steps forward and got in line for the shoot. 2 of the marines in front of him let him go in front. Another 2 stayed wanting to take their shots first anyway. Sam tugged on John's sleeve to get him to move with her.

"Come on, we see enough guns everyday anyway. You have to win me something before it gets dark."

John chuckled. They'd had some cotton candy that Chuck was busy serving while wandering around. They'd chatted some, and found out they had a lot more in common than just the military. She was a bit surprised to hear that his father was Patrick Sheppard, a well known utilities mogul, though even more surprised that John didn't want that kind of life.

"Alright, what do you prefer, a teddy bear or a monkey?"

"Oh? You're so sure you'll win?"

John chuckled as they walked back to the booths.

"You doubting me? That's some real good positive reinforcement there Boss."

Sam knew he was teasing, and if she hadn't known his boyish charm, she'd probably have tried to apologize and reassure him. But she knew he was trying to get her to back down, just part of the game.

"Put your money where your mouth is then."

They were in between the booths and the skeet shooting area, well out of earshot of anyone else.

""Oh, what kind of odds you give me?"

Sam smiled, she'd had fun so far, and she figured tempting him would get a better response.

"Well… if you lose, I get all the money you won back there _and_ you bring me lunch whenever I'm working in my office."

"Oh? And if I win?"

Sam took a deep breath, surprised that she was willing to make this bet.

"Well… I'll take another day off the next time there's a holiday and we'll do whatever you want."

John raised his eyebrows and went into a suggestive tone.

"_Whatever_ I want?"

­­­­­

Sam knew he was joking, he didn't hesitate with the answer at all and she could see he didn't feel ashamed about his answer.

"Not that."

He chuckled, expecting that answer.

"Figures. Alright, I'll take you golfing. You'll love it."

Sam hid her wince, Golfing wasn't her favourite thing to do but she'd be willing to go as long as they took a picnic. And if for whatever reason John didn't win her something, she'd have a personal waiter and whatever money he'd gotten from the earlier bet. Win-Win in her mind.

"Down boy, you still need to win me something."

John pulled her closer as they walked down the pier. Every once in awhile someone gave them a curious glance, but John nodded back in a friendly and unashamed manner so most people didn't give it a second thought. Sam was a little surprised that no one was making a scene out of it, but she kept her mouth shut to keep it like that.

They approached one of the booths, adoring the walls and ceiling were a multitude of plush toys, all meant for the civilian population to get their minds off the typical life or death of Atlantean life. The toys that weren't won would be given to the base's inventory and used for trade when dealing with communities with children.

Sitting at the side of the booth, Kavanaugh sat looking incredibly bored and disdainful of the position he was in. Seeing both Sheppard and Sam walk up arm in arm, he let out a soft chuckle of derisive amusement.

"Well, If it isn't the Ma and Pa of this place itself. Care to take a shot? Win blondey a teddy bear and maybe get a promotion?"

John had just begun to raise his hand to give Kavanaugh the finger and cuss him out. But Sam held his hand down and spoke herself.

"'Blondey' can make sure you go somewhere that you'll have plenty of time to yourself. So keep your mouth shut and you'll get yourself a cushy job."

Kavanaugh smiled, getting off the base would be nice, and maybe he could go somewhere that the military wouldn't be in charge. Little did he know that Sam was actually thinking of the position the Midway Station needed filled to replace Bill Lee. John had to fight to keep from speaking though.

"Alright, Deal. So here's the game, 5 balls, depending how many plates you break, that's the size of the prize you win."

John picked up the baseball in front of him, and tossed it up and down.

"How much?"

"Ten bucks."

John pulled out his wallet and slapped down a ten.

"Gimme."

Kavanaugh handed John the basket and sat back.

"Fire away!"

John pumped his fists and stretched his shoulders. He took a few moments to stretch and make sure he wasn't going to pull anything, some people standing around turned to watch him. A lot already having had some alcohol. A few of the air force personnel started cheering him on.

"Go Sheppard!"

"Eye of the tiger!"

"There is no spoon!"

"Yeah! Nail it Colonel!"

John looked around and gave them some waves, he made a motion for them to keep it down as he was about to throw.

He coiled up and let loose, a half moment later the plate shattered as the ball passed through it.

The small crowd cheered, raising their fists in encouragement. Another 4 times and the crowd had grown large, everyone happy and cheering except for Kavanaugh who sat at the side, indifferent as always.

"Oh yay. The colonel wins the big prize. So what'll you have? The giant teddy bear? The cracked out bird? The big pink heart pillow?"

John chuckled, and looked over at Sam, He motioned for the bird which was actually a Toucan, he raised his eyebrows. Sam gave him a hard look and shook her head almost imperceptibly. She'd been called Toucan Sam before and despite maybe giggling a bit, she didn't want to spread the name anymore.

John mentally resigned himself, and pointed to the giant teddy bear on the ceiling.

"Nice, very creative there Colonel."

"Shut up Kavanaugh, you aren't the only one who wants you off this base. So keep quiet, for both our sakes."

Kavanaugh gave him a disdainful look as he handed Sheppard the giant teddy bear, but kept quiet.

He handed the teddy bear to Sam who gave it a big squeeze. It was a surprisingly good quality one and she'd love to add it to her collection. She fought the urge to give John a hug and settled for a tilted head look at him and some kind words.

"Thanks, I guess I'm going golfing soon."

John chuckled a bit and waited for the crowd to disperse before putting his arm around her. He checked his watch and saw it was already 4 pm.

"Let's grab a bite before Rodney cleans out the table."

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"John, why did you ask me out?"

John took the final bite out of his steak and chewed, he took a few seconds longer than usual in order to properly think up an answer.

"Well, what kind of answer are you expecting?"

Before Sam could respond, John held his hand up.

"No wait, give me a second."

She held her mouth shut for a moment while John grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and pulled his pen out. He scribbled something down furiously and folded it in half; he then put It in his shirt pocket with a flap sticking out.

"Alright, so why do you think I asked you? I just wrote down _my _answer so there's no question."

Sam snickered.

"Alright… I guess… I guess you want me to feel more at home here. I know you and some of the others feel like this is your home and recently I've been really busy with Earth related stuff."

John had a serious look on his face, his jaw moved side to side almost imperceptibly.

"Uhhh… "

Sam could tell that wasn't what he had written; she lunged out like a cobra, quicker than John could have thought she'd move. She snatched the napkin out of his shirt pocket and left him grasping at empty air.

"Oh come on, give it back! Don't read it!"

Sam turned her chair around, forcing John to try and reach around her to get the napkin. From across the table he stood no chance and he wasn't willing to get up and chase her.

She opened the napkin and read it.

'_The reason I asked you out is I haven't seen you smile for real in almost 3 weeks. I can tell the difference between your real smile and your 'polite' smile and it sucks to see you faking it.'_

Try as she might, she still felt a tinge of giddy embarrassment, she covered her shy smile with her mouth, She turned back to him and wasn't too surprised to see him looking sheepish.

"This is so sweet John; I can't believe you actually noticed."

John shrugged, half embarrassed and rubbed the back of his neck. It was the first time she'd gotten the reaction from him the entire night.

"Yeah well… I was expecting you to say something like "Cuz it would make Rodney jealous' or something like that... Wasn't expecting you to actually get so close."

She smiled, and folding the napkin she put it in her pocket. John groaned.

"Oh come on Sam, don't keep it. Any of my guys find out I wrote that and I'll never live it down."

She snickered; it was amusing to see John worried about his reputation.

"Oh don't worry, I'll just keep It somewhere nobody will see it."

John shook his head, chuckling in disbelief.

"Probably come and bite me in the ass later."

She nodded gingerly, laughing out loud at his reaction. She noticed that other couples…

'_Nah, we're not a couple, just some friends out… but he's so sweet.'_

... were busy chatting and laughing. One of the technicians pulled out a bag and pulled out his laptop which he connected into a speaker system and a Mic, he began to emcee over the background music that was already playing.

"Alright folks, grab your partners and get ready, the Valentine's day dance is about to begin and you don't wanna get left out."

He spoke sensually, making it sound very romantic. John, with renewed vigour, held his hand out to her.

"Shall we have the first dance?"

She smiled back, a real smile.

"Sure."

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A few hours had passed; both Sam and John had split up during the dance to have a dance with other people. But now rejoined for the coffee and snacks the cooking staff had put out. They'd talked at length about each other since they arrived and now wanted to mingle with the others. Nearby, Jennifer was chatting with some of the Botanist scientists, one whom seemed to hover around her intently.

"Hey Jennifer, how's the party treating ya?"

She turned and smiled at John, in her eyes John could see the edge of surprise that John had his arm around Sam as they talked, but she kept it hidden in her face and tone.

"Not too bad colonel, but I don't look forward to tomorrow; I'll have my hands full with headaches and dryness…"

She motioned over to the bar where Ronon was busy drinking his second Air Force Captain under the table. His huge size and Pegasus metabolism meant he could easily out drink any member of the expedition, yet another Air Force Captain had challenged him to shot per shot. Lorne was behind him giving him encouragement as he swayed from side to side. Sam had to comment.

"Maybe now he'll say more than just a few words at a time."

John looked over as well, and seeing Ronon started to chuckle.

"What? Chewy? Nah, If anything he'll get quieter. And a hell of a lot meaner."

Jennifer winced and bit her finger as she saw the Air Force Captain slump out of his seat and have 2 of his buddies haul him away to sleep it off. Ronon let out a small roar of victory and began to celebrate with the other Marines around by drinking even more. Jen let go and sighed.

"I don't think I wanna know. Sam can I have tomorrow off? Please? Pretty please?"

Sam chuckled and gave her a pitying smile.

"Sorry Jennifer, Unless you get sick…"

Jennifer clicked her jaw, considering it.

"Would you believe H Pilori?"

John chuckled.

"You aren't getting out of work for gas. No matter how bad it is."

Sam turned to look at him.

"You know what that is?"

John shrugged.

"My wingman had it in Kabul; Bastard didn't like the taste of the meds. Poor schmuck hated sealed cockpits."

The botanist who was obviously interested in Keller immediately joined in, seemingly oblivious of the social awkwardness as they laughed both amused and sickened.

"Yeah, those meds taste nasty."

Both Sam and John winced, poor guy didn't even realise that he was admitting to having a gas creating virus.

Jen smiled politely, and with her head turned to John and sam mouthed the words _"Help me"_.

John, feeling for her, noticed Rodney nearby walking around.

"Hey Rodney! Come here a minute!"

Rodney, somewhat confused, walked over.

"Yes Yes what do you need? I need to prep for the dunking tank."

Sam quickly took advantage and piped in seamlessly.

"Oh great, you know I don't think Jen has seen it up close yet. Do you mind showing her?"

Rodney, again confused, was about to start cursing and saying that he was too busy to act like a tour guide. But seeing the look John gave him, and the fact that it was Jennifer who he'd be going with, he tried to sound as smooth as possible.

"Uhh yeah... ok… that sounds… like fun."

Jennifer, ecstatic that Sam and John had gotten her out of it so fast grabbed Rodney's arm and hooked her own into it. His look of confusion only increased.

"Wha…?"

"Show me the dunk tank Rodney…_now"_

He still didn't catch on, but he decided he'd roll with it and walked away with her.

Sam and John turned around as well and began to meander slowly towards the tank, preparing for the coming dunk. Sam put her head on his shoulder, now a bit more comfortable being around him.

"That was quick thinking John; she was really in a pinch."

"Well, you did your part too. I was going to say something about inviting her for a drink but that worked out great with the dunk tank."

Sam reached into her pocket.

"Let's hope we win."

She pulled out the baseball she had taken earlier and read the number.

"I'm number 34, you?"

John pulled out his own.

"117. Well we'll see. I don't know if I could knock Dr Z into there though. He looks so…"

Sam nodded and snickered.

"I getcha, but if I win I'm knocking him flat on his ass."

John chuckled; Rodney had told him that she wasn't all that impressed with Radek's self-control and social skills while trapped in the transporter. He wasn't going to ruin their evening though by asking about it though.

They walked around a bit more, chatting with everybody around, but soon enough; Rodney's voice cut through the din of the music and got their attention.

"Excuse me, yes hello? _Turn that down would you? I sound like a smurf_. Alright people, the moment we've _all _been waiting for, One of you is going to get the chance to do what I've been praying to do for almost 5 years."

On the plank, Radek cursed in Czech, calling Rodney some unknown and probably terrible name.

"Alright, we're going to pull out the number in a moment, so everyone get your balls out."

The words had already come out, and he shuddered as he realised it. Everybody started laughing, and several Marines shook their hips in his directions, a few going so far as to highlight their areas with their hands.

John muttered under his breath, but Sam could hear it.

_"Goddamn morons."_

She agreed with his assessment, she knew it wasn't fair of her to think so, but most of the combat oriented Marines who had joined the expedition had joined not out of the explorer within, but the chance to get their hands on serious technology and combat outside of the deserts of the Middle East. She had originally disliked the term "jarheads' but it applied quite well in this case.

"Oh grow up would you? This isn't some seedy club in Toronto; put those away, no one wants to see them. Anyways, the winning number is…"

He reached into a bucket full of tickets, and swishing around in them suddenly yelped in pain.

"_Yow!"_

He pulled his hand out and yanked the snapped mousetrap that had been carefully hidden inside the bucket off it. He shook his hand and danced around as all the tickets rained down around him, trying to get past the pain.

The crowd laughed hard, though John noticed off to the side some of the newest members of the expedition high five Captain Alicia Vega, who laughed heartily. He made a mental note to ask her about it later.

Jennifer was on stage as well, now checking Rodney's finger. She got on the Mic with an annoyed voice.

"Hey, whoever did that is in serious trouble, these things can break your finger if it hits the right spot!"

She did a quick check, and seeing that Rodney's finger wasn't broken got back on the mic.

"If anyone in my staff is responsible, you'll be cleaning out bedpans for the next month! I'm sure Colonels Carter and Sheppard agree with me!"

A bunch of the group looked over to Sam and John, who now separated and stood almost at attention. John looked to Sam and waited for her to nod. He then yelled very loudly.

"2 Months of the worst duty I can think of if it's a marine, 1 month if you give yourself up now."

He wasn't expecting Vega to give herself up, no marine would _ever_ surrender and this counted. It was more for show than anything and he actually got a really good internal laugh out of Rodney's face.

Rodney, now back to normal, grabbed the mic and squeezed Jen's shoulder in thanks.

"That goes _TRIPLE _if you're under my staff, I'll have you cleaning out plasma conduits that aren't even dirty!"

The crowd kept laughing, no one admitted to anything and it was clear nothing was really going to happen.

Rodney picked up one of the tickets off the floor and looked at it.

"Alright, the lucky winner tonight is… number 74!"

People around the crowd groaned, a few muttered and chuckled, wondering who was going to get it.

A few moments passed, no one claimed it.

"UH hello? Number 74? Chance of a lifetime? Make me proud?"

Radek muttered as he sat, hoping no one would do it.

A few more moments passed, and finally a marine near the bar started yelling.

"Ronon's got it!"

Everybody started cheering and hooting, wanting Ronon to take the shot.

Ronon was tipsy, in fact he had probably gone way beyond that and would have a hell of a headache the next day. He looked around all confused and looked at the ball in his hand.

"Huh? Really? Alright, _Heads up Zelenka!"_

John barely held back his laughter, as the entire crowd in between Ronon and the dunk tank, a good 50 feet apart suddenly duck and took cover, expecting the baseball to nail them in the head. Sam winced and brought the teddy bear up as a shield. John, having confidence in even a drunken Ronon, stood tall and proud as he watched the streak of white sail over the crowd.

He watched with pitched glee as the Radek himself covered his face and groin with his hands, fearful for his safety. But it was all pointless as John mentally cheered as the ball hit the big bulls eye target and sent Radek into the drink. The loud ping and subsequent scream of shock from the Czech as he found himself immerged in cold water brought everybody up with more cheers and hooting for Ronon.

Sam got up and burst out laughing, seeing the poor hairy Czech trashing about in the pool cursing in 2 different languages was terribly funny and she felt so bad for not being able to control herself. John put his arm around her when she started to sway from the laughter and held her steady.

Off near the bar, several marines grunted in unison and started cheering Ronon on, They picked him up and started carrying him around like some kind of Royalty. He had managed to grab a big bottle of tequila in the process and raised it in victory, splashing some around. He let out a war cry of victory and took a big swig out of the bottle.

John finally stopped laughing enough to speak. He was near tears he had been laughing so hard.

"Oh he's gonna be fun tomorrow, Those marines are gonna kill him they love him so much."

Sam was tearing up as well; she had her head on his front collar bone as she struggled to regain composure.

"Oh god, I haven't laughed this hard in months."

John helped her sit down at a nearby table, Rodney up on stage was ordering people to give Radek a hand getting out of the tub, staying cleanly away from the splashing.

John, never to let an opportunity slip by, spoke almost sarcastically.

"I think I got some of that Radek water on my forehead, got something I can wipe it off with?"

Sam absentmindedly reached into her pocket and grabbed the napkin he'd written on, but before he could get his hands on it she realised and stuffed it back in, laughing even more.

"Oh nice try John, You almost had me there!"

He growled, annoyed but still laughing.

------------------------------------------------

It was late now, almost 10:30pm. They both had to get up early the next day to deal with the repercussions of the night, and John was walking Sam back to her quarters.

They'd stuck around longer then they should have, having a lot of fun joking around with some of the people there and even cracking and having a few drinks themselves. They'd danced a bit more when the emcee technician got back on the mic and played some tunes. Now they were tired and utterly exhausted. Neither said anything as they walked through the halls, John with his arm around Sam's waist now, and Sam hugging both him and her new giant teddy bear.

Finally, they reached her Quarters, and John let her go, though with a slight hesitation.

Sam opened the door and leaned against the jamb, her head resting on her shoulder and the door.

"Thanks John, really I mean it. This was a lot of fun and I let go of a lot of stress today."

John chuckled, and put his hands in his pockets.

"Well to be honest, this is the first Valentine's day that's gone well for me in a long time. I had a lot more fun than I expected."

There was a slight awkward silence; neither really knew what to say at this point. Neither had expected the evening to go so smoothly.

"Well…"

"Well…"

John snickered after a moment, looking off in the distance.

"Usually around this time I'd be asking you when you wanna get together again and try and work out another date, since we already took care of that I'm kinda lost here."

Sam decided to throw him a bone and leaned forward. She gave him a long peck on the cheek and a hug. He looked a little surprised.

"Let's end this with that good note. Good Night Sheppard. Sleep tight."

John chuckled, impressed.

"You never cease to amaze me, Good night Sam. I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, Sam went into her room and waved the door shut. John stood out there for a few moments, pondering the events of the evening.

'_Could we? I mean she is my superior officer... Well Weir was too but… Nah, better to not think about it… But maybe... No, just forget about it."_

Try as he might though, even as he turned away, he wondered exactly what Sam thought as he walked slowly away.

Inside the room, Sam had her ear pressed to the door, listening to see if Sheppard said anything, she didn't hear anything and only after a few moments did she hear him step away, something holding him back.

"_Well he is hot… And he's pretty much the Same age… I haven't seen Jack in so long… I guess this is how he must have felt when we met. Damn, this sucks. Oh well, just forget it, go golfing next time and it'll be over… I hope."_

She tried her best to bury her feelings, but found herself having to take a melatonin cap in order to get to sleep. Perhaps tomorrow and the huge load of paperwork waiting on her desk would help in distracting her.


	2. UnRegulated Fun

_**UnRegulated Fun**_

**-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Setting:** Atlantis, New Athos

**Main Characters**: John Sheppard, Samantha Carter

**Other Characters:** Random Atlantis folk, McKeller

**Timeframe:** A few weeks after Valentine's day.

**Type of Story: **Humour, Romance

**Synopsis:** John has invited Sam to go golfing on New Athos, she's worried that people will start talking about them and decides to make this their last outing. But as she gets to know him better, she realised it might not be as easy as she thought. Also, Lots of random craziness on the base, Humour level is HIGH.

**Author's notes:** This started out as a joke between me and my GF, but she enjoyed it so much that she's convinced me to write a few of them.

Disclaimer: I do not own SGA or any of the Characters, but I am getting sexual favours in return for writing this so I dunno what the legality might be. *Wink wink*

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Sam was nervous, she'd agreed to join John on this trip but she was worried that people would talk even more so.

After Valentine's Day, there were rumours about them all over the base. Especially since they had both arrived and left together. Someone had also seen them when John dropped her off at her quarters and everybody knew she gave him a kiss, even if it was just a peck on the cheek.

She was determined to explain to John that this would be the last time they could go out like this. They were bending regulations too far already and she worried about both of their reputations. She felt irritated though; he could be such a sweetheart and gave her a good place to relieve stress without having to worry about what he might think.

So she'd decided, no more dates, no more touching, and no thinking about anything beyond their professional and friendship relationship.

She sighed, and put on her brown leather jacket.

'_At least until after today.'_

She tied her hair into her now trademark ponytail and left her room, deciding to surprise John by showing up a bit early, so she could talk to him before they left.

Locking the door to her room, she heard a bit of a commotion going on in the corridor. Taking a look she saw Lorne running down the corridor with people surprised to see him moving so fast.

She reacted instantly, yelling before he had gotten too close.

"Major! What's wrong!?"

"Don't tell Ronon!"

Lorne quickly sped past her, his grin spanning his entire face. A few moments after he zipped by, Ronon came stomping past, his snarl spanning his entire face.

"Where'd he go!?"

Sam shrugged, despite having befriended Ronon over the past few months; she felt Lorne would be safer if she didn't tell him.

"Uhhh… He ran by here a moment ago, what'd he do?"

Ronon raised the fighting stick he had strapped to his belt, on each end was a lock of his hair with a pink bowtie on each end, He then pointed to his head where a pair of his dreadlocks were now missing. Sam couldn't help but gasp in shock, and amusement.

"The hell he'd do that for?"

Ronon growled.

"I got him a few days ago… replaced his shampoo with glue, bastard goes too far now!"

Sam struggled not to laugh, she'd heard that Lorne and Ronon had a friendly rivalry going, but to go as far as cutting the Satedan's hair and making his prized fighting stick something more akin to a cheerleader was pushing it. She might have to intervene before someone got injured.

"I think you two should call it even. I don't want to have 2 of my best men in the infirmary over hair issues."

Ronon growled. The veins on his fist that curled around the stick only made him look even angrier. Sam was feeling a little threatened and decided to try and use her rank to keep him under control.

"Tell you what, I'll have a talk with Lorne and see if I can work something out. I can see this is getting ridiculous."

Ronon seemed appeased, but his anger was still vicious.

"I'm still going to kill him."

Sam sighed, it's like Murphy's Law decided to drop the proverbial bucket on her today, and she only wondered what could possibly happen in the coming hours.

"At least do it somewhere I won't see it."

Ronon growled again, this time a bit happier as he ran off after Lorne. Sam rubbed her face with the palm of her hand. This was not the best start to a day off.

Forgetting the rather strange start to her day, she decided she'd stop by Sheppard's quarters to join him for breakfast. They had a long day ahead of them with their trip to New Athos on the itinerary

John had taught the Athosians how to play Golf among other Earth sports. Most of the Athosians were partial to games like Football or Soccer, but a few of the more open minded people liked games like Lacrosse or Golf.

She personally didn't play too many sports, but Football was always fun to watch. She'd played some spccer when she was younger but she'd never really liked it. Lacrosse was a favourite of hers but so few people ever actually played it.

They were slated to leave at around 9am, and it was now 6:30am, she hoped to have a conversation with him before they set out. She only hoped that John was awake.

The rest of her trip to his quarters was uneventful thankfully. However when she reached it, the door was wide open and the contents inside were clearly visible.

She worried about what could possibly be happening, he could have just stepped out, someone could have broken in, or the door itself could be malfunctioning.

Giving in to her innate curiosity, she poked her head in, and heard John in the other room.

"… _She hit me with a bag of nails…"_

She furrowed her brow, was that Johnny Cash?

She decided to try and tease him; his singing was almost exactly like Cash's. Low and oddly guttural, with the addition of being nearly incomprehensible.

She took a few steps in, and took a peek through the doorway to the washroom; she quickly fell back though and stepped on one of his shoes making a clatter.

'_Oh god! I did NOT have to see that!'_

John was naked, having just got out of the shower. He was busy shaving his chin and gelling his hair. Apparently he didn't bother to lock the door. She had gotten a full eyeful of his naked back.

"Who's out there!?"

Sam quickly retreated, ducking and rushing out into the hallway hoping to avoid his sight. She ducked behind the nearest wall that stuck out and hoped John didn't feel like looking around.

She pressed her back against the wall controlling her breathing. She could hear John step out to the doorway, the anger in his breathing noticeable to even her a few feet away.

"Rodney, I swear if that's you, _I'm gonna tear your balls out through your ass!_"

Sam put her hand in her mouth and bit down hard. It was by far the strangest threat she'd ever heard, but the mental image it produced in her head was hilarious. She struggled not to make too much noise as she held her laugh in.

John growled, annoyed that he wasn't able to determine who had been peeking on him.

Sam controlled her breathing, trying to keep from laughing. This day was getting stranger and stranger; she hoped it didn't get any worse.

She waited a moment, until she heard the door close. She decided to take a few minutes to calm down, and throw suspicion off her when she came back.

She waited, and said hi to the 3 people that walked by and gave her curious looks. None of them seemed suspicious that she was hanging around John's Quarters, most probably thought she was just waiting to brief with him.

Once she had waited 10 minutes, she had sufficiently calmed down to speak without the pitch of humour in it. She checked her reflection in a nearby shiny object before ringing the door bell.

"Who is it?"

"John, it's Sam, Open up!"

The door parted, and Sam struggled not to crack under the comedy of the situation. He wasn't wearing a shirt but thankfully he had pants on. His hair was already in its typical spiky formation. John looked a little annoyed but happy to see her.

"Sam, I thought we weren't going to meet up till nine?"

She smiled, trying to hide her amusement in the most obvious place.

"I thought we could have breakfast, we need to talk about some stuff anyways."

John nodded

"We need to go over security protocols actually. I think someone tried to break in earlier."

Sam lost the smile, thankful that she was a good enough actor to hide her inside information.

"Come on in, you don't have to stick around out there."

He waved her in as he turned around, heading to the drawer to the side. Sam finally had a good moment to look around and check his room out.

It was surprisingly tidy, a drawer with she assumed his clothes stood next to the bed, and a model Ferris wheel adorned the top. On the opposite table, model planes and helicopters fought a frozen battle, probably between him and Rodney.

The curtains he had for the window caught her attention, they seemed to sparkle. She wondered whether he was the one who'd chosen them, or if he'd had female assistance.

An Olive Drab box on the ground held his personal equipment, Closed though, she couldn't see inside it.

John quickly put on his t-shirt, then put another black button up on top. Were he not the jovial upstart he was, he'd be the poster child for the adult Emo.

He waved to her that he was ready, and they stepped out into the hallway, he broke the silence easily with a question as they walked.

"So what do you think the mess'll have for breakfast this time? I'm getting tired of those Pegasus chicken omelettes."

Sam chuckled.

"Me too, but you have to admit, those things are huge. I never thought I'd ever see a chicken the size of a German Sheppard."

Deep inside John's mind, he considered making a joke out of the inadvertent pun she said, but he hated puns like that and quickly dismissed it. Instead he went a little dirtier than his usual comedy was.

"Just be glad you don't have to deal with the marines who see them. I've heard enough Rooster jokes to last a life time…"

Sam furrowed her brow, curious.

"Say what? What jokes?"

They stepped into the transporter and John sighed.

"Jarhead jokes, trust me."

"Oh come on, you think it'll offend my _feminine_ side? If anything _you're_ offending me now!"

She smiled as she said it, it did sort of tick her off that he was being so evasive, and seemingly thought she wasn't worth the time of the joke. John rolled his eyes at her though and looked her straight in the eye. He hadn't intended to actually _tell _her the joke, just insinuate it.

"Alright, if you insist…"

He held his finger up emphasising his point.

"BUT, you have to remember, you're insisting."

Sam inputted the coordinates of the mess hall into the transporter as John began the joke.

"What do you get if your donkey eats my rooster's feet?"

Sam furrowed her brow as she finished tapping instructions. She didn't get it.

"Uhh… ok… What do I get?"

John winced.

"2 feet… of my cock… in your ass."

Before Sam could reply with the look of shock on her face, John tapped the activate button on the transporter, and as soon as the blinding flash ended, rushed out into the corridor. Sam's voice wasn't exactly friendly.

"John Sheppard! Back here! NOW!"

"You insisted! Remember that!"

John struggled not to laugh; he honestly thought it was funny if a little crude, but some of the other's he'd heard were downright filthy.

"You could have chosen a less dirty one."

John went into an empty expression, trying to think of a less dirty joke he'd heard about the roosters. He couldn't.

"Uhh… I think that's it actually. Unless you wanna hear the one about the wet cat."

Sam choked on her laughter, after the donkey, she knew precisely what a 'wet cat' signified.

"Oh god, remind me to post up the newest regs regarding jokes like that in the gym. I can't imagine what some of the Athosians must think."

John smiled, recalling what Teyla had said to one marine.

"Well, Teyla told one corporal that most people who joke about sexual stuff are actually insecure about… you know… it was priceless."

Sam laughed too, and felt a bit better.

"Nice, though I'm still posting those regs."

In a way, she was glad that the subject of regulations had come up, it would make it easier to broach the subject with John. They continued their walk to the mess and the smell of frying meats filled the air.

"Mmm… bacon…"

John's random musing made her chuckle, though she remembered someone else who loved to say similar things, and felt sad from his lack of presence. She hadn't seen Jack in almost a year and a half now, him being so busy with Homeworld security.

"We can only pray, I haven't seen any pigs in Pegasus yet."

John scoffed.

"I said… Mmm… _Mysterious_ Bacon."

She snickered.

"Do you have an off switch? Not that I'd turn you off."

John cocked his head, amused.

"Careful Sam, we already had enough puns today."

She raised her hand as if to smack him, smile on her face.

"I guess that answers my question."

They stayed quiet as they grabbed food from the trays in front of them, they were about halfway down the line when Rodney came in to the mess hall, walking a little strangely but obviously hungry. He took his position behind John and started scooping food onto his plate more hurriedly that usual, which basically amounted to a 'bull in china shop' sort of feeling. John, feeling threatened, lashed out.

"The hell's the matter Rodney? She try something kinky last night?"

Sam chuckled, but felt a pang of remorse. Rodney and Jennifer had been openly having a relationship and because they were both civilian ranks, there was little she could do to stop them, not that she wanted to. Rodney just made a sarcastic face to Sheppard and toned down his savage attack of the food trays.

She remembered how Rodney had acted during their time in the Genii Mining facility. The way he managed to somehow incorporate courage and determination into his usual fearful demeanour. He'd changed, and for the better. She still loved the idea of telling him to go 'suck a lemon' though.

They made a good couple. Rodney smart enough to appreciate Jennifer for what she could do, and Jennifer patient and caring enough to coat over Rodney's insecurities, and strong enough to tell him to shut up when he needed to.

She realised with a sad feeling that she and John were much the same. A good match. He was smart enough to appreciate what she could do, and he seemed attracted to her as well, perhaps because of their similar lives.

John was thinking of similar things; how it was oddly arousing that Sam could probably kick his ass if she put her mind to it. At the very least she could beat him at chess which was saying something.

Finally, after a few moments, they all got out of the line and went to sit. John and Sam took their seats opposite each other and politely offered Rodney a seat.

"No no… that's alright… I'm waiting for Jennifer anyway."

Sam, now sensing hesitation, pried.

"Oh come on, she's not here yet, you can't sit with us for 5 minutes?"

Rodney stood, with his tray on the table and absentmindedly picking at the food on it.

"Oh no no no… just pretend I'm not here…"

John, realising that his friend was hiding something, gave him a cold interrogative stare.

"She did do something kinky last night didn't she? You can't sit!"

Rodney, blushing now, turned to him.

"No.. But for gods sakes keep it down!"

He had a look of desperation, and shock.

"Someone put a tack on my chair this morning… I can't sit or walk straight anymore!"

Sam was sipping her apple juice and felt it start to enter her nasal cavity from the sudden hilarity. John had no problem and howled in laughter, when he saw Sam struggling to keep control, shaking her body as she forced her muscles to keep from contracting and shooting the beverage out her nose, he laughed even harder.

The people around them, most having just gotten up, were shocked into full alert status as they watched Rodney blush embarrassingly with his body weight shifted onto his left leg, and both their leaders struggling to regain control of their laughter. Obviously Rodney was being humiliated yet again.

"Yes yes yes… I know I'm just a big joke to everyone around here. Might as well get your laughs out of the way first…"

Sam, wiping the tears from her eyes gave him an endearing look.

"Aw Rodney, I'm sorry, it's just that… Wow a tack. I haven't heard of that happening in a long time. Can't imagine who it was."

John chuckled, having a good idea. He'd questioned Vega about the mousetrap on valentine's and the only reply he could get was "Semper Fi". He'd agreed and sent her on her way. His voice now was laced with insinuation and his eyebrows were raised.

"I'm sure Keller won't mind checking it out."

Rodney, realising what he meant suddenly forgot all about the humiliation and stared off into the distance, thinking about it.

"Well… there _is_ a silver lining in most things… Ah there she is, excuse me… I've got to find a pillow."

With that, Rodney half limped over to where Jennifer had just walked in from. She saw the two commanding officers sitting together and waved with a smile.

Both Sam and John waved back, sly smiles on their faces. John spoke softly, so only Sam heard.

"I'd have never thought it, but he's actually happy. I guess fairy tales do come true sometimes."

Sam groaned, but internally she loved the concept. John gave her an incredulous look.

"Oh don't gimme that, you know as well as I do how rare it is to find someone compatible like they are."

She smiled, and finished chewing the pancake she'd grabbed.

"I know I know… I'm guess I'm just a little jealous."

John raised an eyebrow, a manoeuvre he'd picked up from Weir.

"You _can't_ be serious."

Sam shrugged.

"Not that I'd ever do anything, but it was nice knowing I had some control over Rodney."

John chuckled and took a swig from his coffee

"Ah, that makes more sense. I can see where that'd be handy."

Sam smiled and was quiet; they finished eating without speaking much and were now just nursing their drinks. Sam decided it was as good a time to tell him as ever.

"John, there's something we need to discuss."

"Oh?"

His eyes told her that he had an inkling of what it might be, that rebellious "so what?" look in his eyes was so attractive. She might miss the idea of Rodney infatuated with her, but John gave her something completely different.

"Yeah… Uhh…"

John chuckled, his smile was maddening.

"Well? Cat got your tongue?"

She didn't like being rushed; she shot an angry glance at him and pointed her finger, threatening him. He just kept smiling.

"John, Shut up."

He did as she asked, but he didn't back down. Finally she got her thoughts into words.

"John, you know we're breaking regulations by going out together."

John nodded, and stayed quiet to let her finish.

"I'm your superior officer, I'm your direct base commander, and even though we're not on Earth, we still have rules to follow."

John nodded, Sam was getting annoyed by how easily he was accepting this.

"We're the leaders of this expedition, and everyone looks to us for guidance and examples. I'll admit, as much fun as it is hanging out with you, we can't keep doing this."

John nodded again, his smile unmoving, infuriating her.

"Stop that!"

John cocked his head.

"Stop what?"

"That! This isn't a joke!"

John stopped laughing, but his smile remained.

"I getcha, but there's nothing in the regs that's against stress relief or team building opportunities."

She raised an eyebrow.

"_That's_ what you call this? 'Team Building' opportunities?"

He nodded, his smile having the edge of sarcasm.

"Well I do stuff with everyone else, why not you?"

Sam made an unhappy sound.

"I know… but it's trickier when it's with the person in charge. It's not like I ever went to General Hammond's house for an afternoon of BBQ and water polo."

John shrugged.

"So what? You'd call him your friend and if he ever _did_ invite you you'd go wouldn't you?"

She mulled it over, stretching her mouth in the process.

"Well… I guess, but that's different, it's not like I'm going to date him."

John's eyebrows raised.

"Oh so we're dating? That's what's got you worried?"

She had never met someone so infuriating, the way he turned her words on her and made it seem like she was infatuated with him. It was a strange feeling, wanting to slam him into a bed and into a wall at the same time. She took a deep breath and counted to 3 inside her head, resetting her fury.

"_John_… Yes, I think us going out together with the purpose of having fun and spending time together qualifies as a date, and that's what we're going to do today right?"

He cocked his head.

"And here I was thinking you were trying to get out of that."

She sighed.

"No, I promised, but I need to be clear that we can't keep doing stuff like this. You heard all the rumours floating about after Valentines?"

John scoffed.

"Yeah, who knew our baby making skills would be such good water cooler talk?"

She choked, and snickered. He had said it so nonchalantly it was funny.

"Keep it down will you? I'm already worried we're gonna have to deal with even more after today."

John nodded, respecting her privacy. He got up and stretched. He checked his watch as he spoke.

"Alright well, I'm gonna go make sure Lorne's still in one piece and can handle things while we're gone. I'll see you in the jumper bay in… 40 minutes?"

Sam nodded, and gave him a curious look.

"One piece? John… what do you know about what I saw this morning between Lorne and Ronon?"

He smiled, his inner rebel coming out.

"Oh nothing to worry yourself about, I'm sure Lorne is 'quite' alright."

Sam chuckled as John strode away. Inside she was pissed off though. Her conversation with John had not gone as she'd expected and he'd somehow managed to make her even more frustrated.

"_Damnit, he's so cocky… doesn't he ever give up?"_

She tried not to think about it; not think about how his persistence made her feel attractive, how he rode his cocky mannerisms so well by living up to it. And she definitely tried not to think about what he'd look like after his gym routine.

She shivered, brushing all the thoughts out of her head and decided to get her bags to the Jumper so they could leave right away. She'd also gotten a duffel full of plush toys for the children of Athos, she knew they'd love them.

-------------------------

"So Sam, have you taken the gene therapy yet? I'm hoping I get to see you fly this thing."

The jumper was moving at a decent pace, skimming the trees underneath.

Sam shook her head. She hadn't taken the gene therapy.

"No, I'm actually not going to take it. I know it's got a fifty percent chance of working, but I'd rather not play with the threads of my own existence."

John chuckled.

"But changing the course of history in 2 or 3 galaxies, that's alright?

She chuckled, and saw what he meant.

"I getcha, it's just… I dunno, I was made this way, I'd rather not play god with something like that, even if it meant flying this thing."

John looked at her, curious.

"You believe in God?"

She nodded, and looked out the window.

"Yeah, I know I know… everybody asks me 'how can I believe in god when I've seen what I've seen'."

John shrugged.

"Well I don't know about that. I mean… how can you _not_ believe there's something bigger out there with all we've seen?"

She cocked her head, surprised.

"I've never heard you talk like this before."

John made a slightly uncomfortable motion as he landed the Jumper in the clearing.

"Well… it's not often God comes up in the conversation."

Sam got up with him, and picked up her bags as the aft hatch opened.

"So you believe?"

John lugged the backpack he'd brought as well as the large duffel bag that probably had his clubs. He shrugged again.

"I guess… like I said I don't talk about it much."

Sam smiled, and absentmindedly gave his shoulder a squeeze, she realised she was breaking her own rule already and tried to smoothly play it off.

"Neither do I, but it's nice to know we're not alone."

In her mind, she was screaming at herself. She'd been trying to downplay any sign of attraction or anything more than platonic friendship. Instead she found herself drawn even more to him.

It wasn't long before they reached the village and the sound of children playing brought a smile to them both.

Halling and his son Jinto came up, having expected them.

"Colonel Carter, Colonel Sheppard. It is good to see you both again."

Jinto looked up at Sam, seeing her for the first time.

"Hello."

Sam, who having experience with non-earth children, held her hand out in friendship.

"Hi there, I'm Sam, you're Jinto right?"

Jinto took her hand, still a bit self-conscious.

"Yes… Teyla told us you were going to be coming today. She said your hair was like the sun."

John snickered, Jinto was often blunt and unintentionally hilarious.

Sam laughed softly, she wasn't offended but the little guy was cute.

"Well… do you think she was right?"

John watched Jinto as he looked at Sam, instantly he saw the kid's crush being created before his eyes.

"It's beautiful…"

Sam saw it too, and felt a little embarrassed. Thankfully Halling saw it too and put his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"I believe Colonels Carter and Sheppard are here for more than just modeling their hair, go now Jinto, I will join you shortly."

The boy, turned away, and waved shyly to Sam, totally ignoring his old friend John. Halling sighed, embarrassed.

"I must ask you to forgive the boy, he has been growing more and more out of my control."

Sam giggled, and shook her head.

"It's alright Halling, I'm used to it."

She motioned over to Sheppard, who made an indignant face.

"Hey! I am not a 14 year old, despite what McKay and certain other parties might think!"

Halling laughed, and John muttered under his breath.

"Yeah right, gang up on the nice guy, very mature."

Sam snickered and put down her bag as she commented that a nice guy was the last thing he was. She motioned Halling to look as she opened it.

"We brought these for the children, and John has medicine our Doctor sends. I hope they like them."

Halling saw the plush toys, and picked one up.

"What kind of creature is this?"

John chuckled.

"That would be a teddy bear, a symbol of the lengths a man will go in his search for a woman."

Sam raised her eyebrows to him. Again he was dancing on the razor thin edge of wit and 'too far'.

Halling curiously inspected the toy.

"Why is it pink?"

Sam answered, trying to tease John back.

"Because men don't understand women at all, and most believe that pink will make us like them more."

John smiled, he enjoyed this tête-à-tête, Sam was a much more worthy opponent then McKay, and neither Ronon nor Teyla ever got his sarcastic earth flavoured wit.

"Good thing the one I gave _you_ was brown."

Both chuckled, and Halling drifted his sight to each of them again and again, trying to figure out what was happening.

"Your customs seem so strange to me sometimes…"

Halling picked up the duffel and looped it over his shoulder, he looked at both Sam and John and shook his head, muttering.

"I will not ask, but you are both welcome to our village as always."

He turned and walked back into the village, leaving both Sam and John a little befuddled. Sam decided to be a smartass and commented.

"See what happens? This is what I meant about regs."

John snickered, his comeback left nothing to the imagination.

"That's nothing, you should have been there for me and McKay on PX7-118, they wouldn't believe we weren't married until I walked up and punched him in the head. We left that part out of our report because well… I don't think the base needs more gossip."

Sam opened her mouth in surprise, she struggled not to laugh.

"You punched him!?"

John shrugged innocently.

"He saw it coming! It wasn't like I knocked him out or anything. Besides he was glad they weren't looking at him strange for the rest of the trip."

Sam laughed, and recalled one of her own memories.

"I remember a few years back, a village elder thought the same of General O'Neill and Dr Jackson… it… it made them both a little queasy. It was one of the only times I've seen T'ealc laugh."

John chuckled.

"Wow… that's amazing. When he was here, T'ealc told me some crazy Jaffa joke. Something about the different first primes and a nose dripping… whatever that means. That was oddly creepy."

Sam snickered.

"Yeah, I never did get that joke."

They walked deeper into the village, and reached the tent that the Athosians had prepared for any visiting Atlantis personnel. Once they dropped off all their things, John opened his duffel.

"Ready to take a swing with a nine iron?"

Despite her nod and smile, he sensed her apprehension. He had anticipated her not liking golf and instead of the club, pulled out a big nerf football.

"What the…? Why do you have a football?"

Her double take was as amusing to John as the rhetoricalness of her question.

"What do people do with a football? I figured you wouldn't wanna golf too much, so I brought this so we could play catch, or if you'd like, I'm sure Jinto can get his friends to set up a game."

Sam reacted, knowing full well what Jinto would want to do in a game that encouraged physical contact.

"No no! That's alright! We can toss it around later, maybe after lunch…"

John chuckled, and kept his insinuating wit to himself.

-------------------------

The field had been ploughed by the combat engineers at John's request, instead of the long and arduous job of shovels and other manual tools, they had repurposed a trio of MICLICs to completely clear the field for making the course.

It had taken a full season, but the grass had grown in evenly and there was now a perfect place to take a few swings.

John had set up and held his driver in both hands, showing Sam how to hold it.

"This is basically how you're supposed to hold the club."

She listened and paid attention; He took a swing and the ball flew down range, it landed a few feet away from the flag about 200 feet away.

He turned and faced her, as he did he grabbed another smaller club from his bag and held it out to her.

"A driver might be a little tall for you, but I think a 3 or 5 wood would fit you nicely."

She moved forward and snatched the driver out of his hands, irritated at his mention of her height.

"I'll be the judge of that thank you very much. Now move!"

John held his hands up, and decided to let her try and swing. He doubted he'd have another 'Ronon' situation.

Sam held the driver, and looked down where the flag pointed out her target about 200 yards away.

"Think I'll make it in one swing?"

John, knowing a trick question when he heard one, chuckled.

"Think I'll answer truthfully?"

Sam stuck her tongue out, and threatened him with the club jokingly. She then got into position, and swung the club.

Instead of hitting the ball, it drove into the ground and a big clump of dirt flew about 10 feet ahead of her. She dropped the club and winced in pain. She massaged her wrists, jarred from the impact.

"_Damn Newton!_" *

John was confused, but amused,

"Say _whaat?"_

She winced, and stretched her wrists.

"Newton… you know, Isaac Newton… equal, opposite reaction?"

John, finally understanding the curse, expressed his amusement with a hearty laugh.

"Wow, that's the nerdiest thing I've heard it weeks."

She retorted by giving him the finger, though she did admit, it was nerdy. John stepped closer to her and took her hands in his.

"Here, this'll help, god knows I did that enough times when I started."

She felt her heart speed up, she wanted to tell him to stop, that she was alright, but surprisingly he knew exactly where to rub, and she felt the pain leave her wrists as he worked his fingers. She smiled although with a little hesitation, and looked at him.

"Thanks."

He tilted his head a bit, and smiled back.

"No problem, now for your swing…"

She'd been expecting this, she saw it in all the movies and it was a very common move for the guy to pull, he swung in around her and curved his own arms around hers, his hands covering hers as he handed her the club. She felt his body heat through her back as he sidled up.

"Here, these are the basics."

He used her fingers to wrap around the 3-wood, and put the top against her belly.

"Here's a few crib notes, start with the club against your belt buckle."

He pushed the club down, and it rubbed gently against her. She resisted shivering.

"Now hold it out, extend your arms, and keep the top pointing at your buckle."

They moved together, she felt his biceps flex slightly against her triceps. Despite the medical knowledge, she still liked it. When he used his shoulders to pull her up straight, she moaned softly.

"Stand up straight, keep your spine as straight as you can."

She noted with reserved satisfaction that he was breaking his own rule, and curved to stay in contact with her. She wondered exactly how much of what he was teaching her was actually useful, and how much he was just teasing her.

He sighed, and whispered.

"Remember, I'm teaching you how to swing, don't take this the wrong way…"

She raised her eyebrows, wondering what could possibly come next.

"Alright, now… bend forward from your hips until the club head hits the ground. Ready?"

She nodded, and wondered what someone might think if they saw them in this position, or even worse, the position they were about to be in.

"Yeah… just don't get too excited."

John scoffed, but was having too much trouble concentrating to say something witty. The multi-task of recalling his own golf lessons while not offending his commanding officer were already pushing him to his limits.

He started bending over, watching carefully how she reacted. He noted with satisfaction that she didn't resist, though she did feel a bit tense as she moved.

The club head finally hit the ground, and they were both silent a moment. Sam took advantage and turned her head and whispered.

"You there Sheppard? What's next?"

John cleared his throat, he hadn't expected Sam to be such a smartass. He had to concentrate more on not poking her than his lesson.

"Uhh… yeah… uhh.. here, make sure you're properly balanced…"

He moved his feet, and used them to push her feet into a nicely balanced position.

"Alright… now… I'm gonna show you the basic swing motion ok?"

She nodded, and tried to relax.

He moved, keeping his spine as straight as he could, and moved her body in unison with his own, he did it slowly, so she got a feel for how it was supposed to be. In the quiet of the forest, their breathing was all the more noticeable.

"Think you've got the idea?"

John needed to let go, he felt his pulse increase and breathing go a bit deeper. Anymore and she'd know for sure he was getting excited. The last thing he needed was to get teased harder just because _he_ was.

Sam, feeling his pulse though his arms, cut him a break and nodded.

"I think I got it."

He let go, of both her and the baited breath he had been holding in. it took a lot of concentration to keep from making it noticeable.

He stood back and admired her as she swung.

'_Whew, she's in better shape than I thought. Desk Duty certainly didn't soften her up,"_

Sam swung the club, more like a baseball bat than a regular golf swing, and was rewarded with a half-decent slice, the ball flying out into the woods.

"Damn, at least I hit it this time."

John chuckled.

"Don't worry about it, I was 15 when I first got to the green in 1 shot."

She turned, and smiled appreciatively. She loved hearing about his young days.

"Where'd you learn to golf? I'm guessing you aren't exactly an amateur."

He shrugged, modest about his skill.

"Caught the bug in grade school. I guess going to private academies does that to you."

She used the club as a stand and leaned on it.

"I guess you went to private schools all your life huh?"

John nodded, and moved forward to pluck the club from her hands.

"Yes… and my golf instructor would hit me with a ruler when I leaned on my clubs."

She pulled back, slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry, didn't know."

He shrugged it off.

"It's okay, just clubs. Feel like grabbing lunch?"

She cocked her head quizzically.

"But we just got here."

He pulled out a thermal bag from his duffel, and a smaller bag of what looked like charcoal.

"You can keep swinging, I'll get the barbeque ready."

Again, he'd pulled the proverbial rabbit out from his hat, or duffel in this case.

"You never cease to amaze me Sheppard."

----------------------------------

"Are you serious?!"

"Every word."

Sam had told Sheppard of the time SG-1 had been captured by a Goa'uld while meeting with a Tok'ra agent, and Dr Felger and his nervous sidekick Dr Coombs had managed to effect a hilarious bumbling rescue.

Sheppard scoffed, and then laughed as he poked at the fire in front of him.

"If I ever got into that much trouble and Zelenka decided to save me, I don't know if I could live it down…"

Sam scoffed loudly.

"I _highly_ doubt that would ever happen."

They had been chatting and sharing funny memories from missions through the Stargate. Carter had a lot more of them, but some of Sheppard's stories made her howl in laughter. Most of those involved Rodney facing certain death and ticking clocks. They'd burned through most of the afternoon and the sun was beginning to set.

John, hearing the slight derision in her voice, decided to ask.

"So hey, uhh… McKay was telling me awhile back… when the Quarantine lockdown happened a few months back… you weren't too happy being stuck with Dr. Z in the transporter."

Sam rolled her eyes and leaned back.

"Well since you're my second in command, and everything I tell you is supposed to be classified, I'll tell you that uh… yeah, he creeped me out. God you know he raises pigeons?"

John snickered.

"Yep, wish I had one back then, but climbing the tower was kinda fun."

She shot up, and the grin on her face said it all.

"Yes! I told him the same thing when we were trapped! He didn't get it! He thought I wanted to eat the damn thing! Eewww!!!"

Both of them started cackling, the idea ridiculous to them both.

She'd been kicking herself all afternoon. She was having so much fun just hanging out with John and doing the stuff she just didn't have much time to do while in charge back on Atlantis. All thoughts of rules and regulations were gone, she was having fun and the rules were only adding to her stress.

A few moments passed as they calmed down. John was feeling restless and felt like he had to move.

"Wanna play catch?"

She shook her head, and stretched her neck.

"No no… I'm still sore from swinging that club so much."

John got a caring look on his face.

"Well as tense as you are, I'm not surprised."

She snorted.

"Well it's not like I have the time to be relaxing all day playing video games and hanging out in the gym."

She was referencing a few days earlier, when John and Rodney spent 3 hours playing some real time strategy game using the giant screens Atlantis so commonly used. John had won and forced Rodney to join him in the gym for once. John chuckled, and replied indignantly.

"Oh come on, McKay called me a _noob_. I _had_ to prove him wrong. Plus I probably made him lose a pound or two afterwards."

She giggled.

"True, but that still doesn't help me any."

John took a moment to himself, seemingly deciding something. He clamoured over to her and waved her closer.

"Come here, Teyla gave me something for that awhile ago."

She sort of felt defensive. Was he actually going to do it?

"Are you serious? You're gonna rub my shoulders?"

John, feeling the pressure on him, stood his ground, but the hesitation was noticeable.

"Well… it's a one time offer. I won't tell anyone, promise."

She made a hesitant noise with her throat. She _wanted _him to do it, but felt it might make this uncomfortable if she let him. She realised that he was already uncomfortable, and if she said no he might get defensive again. She'd gotten him to open up a bit more but there was still more she wanted to know about him. So she smiled weakly and looked at him.

"Well… what did Teyla give you?"

John pulled a small bottle out of his carryall, he showed it to her.

"Apparently it's the oil of some kind of chilli pepper leaves here in Pegasus, It's kinda like RubA535, but it's not numbing. You'll feel your muscles move and relax."

She furrowed her brow.

"It's not gonna hurt is it?"

He shrugged.

"Your muscles might pop loose if they're really tense. It felt kinda…"

He was going to say 'climactic' but thought better of it.

"…kinda sudden to be honest."

She squirmed, but figured if it worked for Sheppard, it would work for her.

"Alright… but seriously, not a word. If Rodney finds out I let you do this we'll never live it down."

Sheppard nodded, and pulled her into position. She took her jacket off and took a deep breath.

John, suddenly feeling apprehensive, took a moment to crack his knuckles. He then gingerly laid his fingers around her traps, where her shirt ended.

"I'm just gonna soften it up a bit, Teyla did the same, she said using the oil right off the bat might be a little too much for a tense person."

She nodded, and concentrated on her breathing, not on how she hadn't let anyone touch her like this in a long time.

She let an almost imperceptible moan leave her throat as he began to rub. It hurt slightly, but only until he began to rub deeper.

John was careful, this might be something a bit more intimate, but he still had to consider everything that could happen. Having a particularly awkward moment with his boss would _not_ be in his best interest. So he kept it professional, staying clear of any sensitive areas.

Sam on the other hand, was having trouble _not _thinking about it. She'd spent such a long time being the tough girl that she had forgotten what it was like to feel soft. His fingers were _so good_, his palms were surprisingly gentle on her skin.

A minute passed, and John let her go, she sighed, already missing his touch, but nervous as to what the next part might feel like.

John squirted some of the oil onto his hands, and spread it softly onto her exposed skin, going a little further and rubbing it onto areas beneath her shirt.

Sam gasped, it was cold, and she involuntarily flexed her back, reacting to the fluid.

She noticed he was having a little trouble getting to her shoulders, so she unbuttoned the top 2 buttons of her shirt and pulled it over her shoulders.

"I'm serious, not a word."

"I'm not sure they'd believe me."

She laughed, and moaned again, a little louder this time as Sheppard squeezed her shoulders, his movements smooth as his fingers slid across her skin.

It wasn't long before Sam felt the heat, it wasn't like RubA535 at all. It felt like her muscles were on fire and losing control. It felt incredibly good.

"Ohhh… forget ZPMs, I'm gonna market this stuff back home and retire."

John chuckled, and felt aroused from the noises emanating from the blonde in front of him. He relaxed a bit and went a little more daring with his movements, rubbing her shoulder blades. He noticed with keen satisfaction she flinched slightly to his touch, afraid to enjoy it too much.

He checked his thoughts, this was Colonel Samantha Carter he was thinking about, and he was already pushing the limits of their friendship. He resisted doing anything that would be considered 'obviously' erotic and kept working on her back, focusing on the core muscle groups.

Another few seconds passed, and Sam suddenly jerked forward, her shoulders shaking. She let a loud groan escape her mouth as she tried to keep control.

"_Oh god…!"_

John, worried for a moment, realised that one of her knots had come loose and she was feeling the agonizing pleasure of relaxed muscles. He held his laughter, as she must obviously know what she looked and sounded like.

In between gasps, she was able to mutter.

"Not a damn… _ahhh…_. Not a word Sheppard… _ohhh… _I swear I'll… _urrgh… I'll_ kill you if…_ oh god…"_

Sheppard chuckled, and leaned forward to whisper to her.

"I wouldn't dream of it…"

---------------------------

Sam sat with her head on John's shoulder, she'd finally accepted that Sheppard would remain quiet about her near orgasmic reaction to the Athosian muscle relaxant. She'd also decided to make an about face of her earlier appraisal of the situation and continue seeing Sheppard outside of their professional roles. Though she wouldn't tell him as much.

They were watching the Athosian children play, Sam noted with some slight regret that Jinto, who gave her a look every now and again, seemed depressed to see her so close to Sheppard. The moon was rising in the horizon; the light reflecting off it was calming.

"John?"

John was sleepy, it was almost 10pm and he wanted to go to bed.

"Hmm?"

Sam spoke softly, not wanting to draw any attention.

"I have a confession to make."

"Oh?"

She giggled madly, recalling the morning.

"It was me who broke into your quarters this morning. I thought there might be trouble when I saw the door open so I took a peek inside."

He was silent a moment, recalling the incident himself.

"Did you…?"

"See? Yeah, Johnny Cash rocks."

John took a moment to digest it, then chuckled.

"At least I know it wasn't Rodney peeking on me; _that_ was a creepy thought."

She laughed again.

"Sorry you don't get to… how'd you put it? 'tear his balls out through his ass'? God, that's horrible."

John scoffed loudly, impressed with his own creative insult.

"Ha! Don't worry, he'll find someway to incur that eventually."

She snuggled closer to him, feeling completely at ease. Thankfully most of the Athosians didn't pay any attention to them and simply let them be.

"Thanks… I mean it too."

John snorted in amusement.

"You keep thanking me, pretty soon it'll lose _all_ meaning."

She shoved him playfully, and savoured the now fluid and flexible range of motion her back allowed.

"Shut up John… I'm trying to say I'm sorry about the whole regs and rules thing… I appreciate you caring enough about me to keep at it."

He tightened the hug he already had around her, comfortable with her.

"No problem, but you are right about one thing, we can't let anybody know we're doing this. Who knows what the IOA would do?"

Sam snorted in laughter.

"Probably discharge us, maybe lock us up from what we know."

John turned his head and looked at her.

"Big risk, what do you think?"

She sighed contentedly.

"I think I'm sick and tired of complexity, I want something simple, something fun. And I'm willing to take a few risks."

John scoffed.

"You calling me simple?"

She giggled and hugged him.

"Yes, but don't change, I like you just the way you are."

He paused and took a moment. Then spoke softly.

"You like me?"

She sighed contently, it wouldn't be long before they'd have to go back to Atlantis and have to wait till the next time to spend some time alone with him. She just wanted to enjoy the moment and enjoy the warmth of his body.

"Shut up John."

---------------------------------------

A/N: Yes, it's crazy, Yes it's fluffy, and yes, I recycled a joke or two from Realisations. Sue me, it's funny and cute. :P

I'll be writing another when I get the bunny, lord knows they love humping the inside of my skull.

About the _**"Bag of nails'**_ quote. I'm not sure whether or not that was actually a lyric, but a few years ago Chris Mitchell and me had a conversation about how unintelligible some Cash songs were. This was the result of that conversation.

"…_**tear your balls out through your ass!"**_ This is a threat I utter onto those who have active imaginations, The mental image I get makes me crack up.

For those who don't know. A **MICLIC** (Mine Clearing Line Charge) is a device used by Combat Engineers to clear mine fields. Basically it's a huge cord of C4 explosive that's fired out of a tank and literally blows mines out of the way. Look it up if you'd like, it's coooool.

"_**Damnit Newton!"**_ *This curse is actually from my own vocabulary. It sounds a lot like something Sam would say so I added it in. My GF didn't get it either till I explained it :P


	3. Travelling Olympics Part One

_**Travelling Olympics (Part One)**_

**-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Setting:** Atlantis, Traveller Aurora Class Warship

**Main Characters**: John Sheppard, Samantha Carter, Larrin

**Other Characters:** McKeller, Evan Lorne

**Timeframe:** Hmmm good question, definitely pre-'Lost Tribe'. I'd say by a few months. Continues from prior chapter _**"UnRegulated Fun"**_

**Type of Story: **Humour, romance, drama

**Synopsis:** A few weeks have past since John and Sam agreed to see each other on a more regular basis, though with things the way they are, lunch is about all they get. So John and Rodney convince Sam to allow them to host the first Pegasus Olympics, but their preparations are complicated by the arrival of an old ally.

**Author's notes:** Will be a three-part fic, a little less comical than the last 2 but still has its moments. Oh and P.S. I hate word… my laptop is in US English and my desktop in CAN/UK English… so all these damn u's keep popping up where I least expect them to, and then showing up as errors!! I'm too lazy to install more language packs on my laptop so I'm just venting. Add to that firefox has it's _own_ spell checker and it's driving me insane.

P.S. OMFG. I made a total brainfart error that Marcus S Lazarus PM'd me about. Fixed! But argh...

------------------------

Inside Colonel Samantha Carter's office, three quarters of the senior staff were having a meeting. Of those three, one third was throwing quite the hissy fit.

"No no no no no… that's not acceptable, Nuh uh, no way."

Sam furrowed her brow, crossed her arms, and leaned on her desk.

"Oh? And why exactly is that Rodney?"

McKay, fuming from the news, flailed his arms about in front of him to emphasis his point.

"We have no idea what could be in it! Hallucinogens, psychotropic agents, carcinogens…"

John Sheppard, with his feet up on the stool in front of him, chuckled and suggested.

"Citrus?"

Rodney shook his fist at Sheppard and grumbled.

"I'm not the only one with allergies you know, have you seen any peanuts on the base?"

Sam snickered, she'd anticipated some resistance to the idea, but this was getting hysterical in every sense of the word.

"Relax Rodney, it's only coffee."

Rodney got up and looked incensed.

"Only coffee? _ONLY COFFEE!? _I hope you realize that more than half of my personnel _live _off it! How else would we be able to put the hours in to decode all the information in the ancient database?"

Sam had already decided, and with John on her side as well as Dr Keller, they had the majority vote of the senior staff. She wanted unison but McKay was obviously in love.

"Rodney, it tastes just like the real thing. In fact Jennifer says that unlike regular coffee, this actually has a few more nutrients like omega 3 fatty acids while having similar levels of caffeine."

Instead of reassuring him, Rodney rubbed his hands into his face.

"So it's _fish_ coffee!? How is that supposed to make me feel better about this?"

John tapped his foot in mid-air while admiring Rodney's hissy fit.

"Rodney, if you're so adamant about this, why don't _you_ talk to the IOA and explain why it's necessary for the expedition to order 200 pounds of coffee a month for the base, all while remembering that most bases use 400 _tops_ in a _year!"_

Rodney shook his hands in frustration.

"Most bases don't have half the most genius minds humanity has to offer working 10 hour days! And that's just what I ask of them, most stay and keep working till they pass out!"

Sam nodded, understanding.

"Well that's sort of the problem, your teams have been working themselves ragged and aren't getting a proper diet. This'll help to alleviate the problem."

Rodney shook his head, still confused.

"Can we at least bring in _some?_ I'll get a petition going so we have something to take to the IOA."

Sam already had worked it out, they'd get regular shipments of 30 lbs on the Daedalus when it made its intergalactic journey. But for the most part, the Pegasus version of the brown bean would suffice. Of course she wasn't going to tell this to Rodney as she wanted to use the precious earth beverage as leverage to get the base back on track nutritionally.

"Rodney, it's already been decided, Both I and Colonel Sheppard, as well as Jennifer agree that it's better for the base in all ways."

John sniggered, he loved seeing Rodney get all flustered like this.

"Oh don't worry Rodney, you'll get used to the stuff. Ronon says it's great!"

Rodney, far from convinced, threw his hands up in final frustration and muttered.

"This is going to kill me you know? I've been drinking coffee for as long as I remember and changing to something else would probably put me into anaphylactic shock… Just remember to put _"Damn you all, I told you so"_ on my tombstone…"

Sam shook her head and chuckled as she patted him on the shoulder. John's smirk belied his comment.

"Sure thing _Mr Wells, _The coffee is only part of this meeting though right Sam?"

Rodney sat and shook off the surprise that John knew of H.G. Wells's epitaph. He held his head up with his palm and sighed.

"Alright… now that the worst is over, what's left?"

Sam, still smiling from seeing Rodney so flustered, handed them both tablets with scrolling information on them. It was a crew list of the people under their command.

"As you can see, it's a list of the personnel on the base in each of your departments. As well as all the training that I'm recommending they take."

Both Rodney and Sheppard took a look at the list, the noises coming from them showed their unhappiness. John spoke first.

"Basic Ancient Language Classes? Cross Cultural adaptation techniques? You do realize that half of my boys can hardly speak _English_ at times?"

Rodney was a little less sarcastic and much more infuriated.

"Fitness Courses? Basic Hand to Hand Combat? _Military Jargon for Dummies!? _Sam, sorry for being so blunt but are you serious? These are _scientists and engineers for Pete's sake!_ Most haven't touched a dumbbell in their lives! Let alone _punched _anybody!"

Sam waved them both down, quieting their arguments.

"Be that as it may be Rodney, this is a military installation. Albeit with scientific facilities to rival Area 51, the possibility that they might encounter hostile life forms is possible. So I'd rather they all have at least a basic fitness level and some minor military training. And as for you…"

She turned and pointed to Sheppard, whose smirk spanned his face as he watched Rodney get chewed out.

"Last week's 'incident' has proven to me that the marine contingent on the base needs to have sensitivity training and cross cultural training specific to Pegasus. Teyla has already offered to be the course instructor but I need your support on this."

Sheppard opened his mouth to argue, but thought better of it at the last moment. The incident was a bit extreme and perhaps Sam was right.

AR-6, which was normally a heavy recon unit, had been sent to scout out a planet for possible Ancient technology, the initial MALP survey showed faint energy signatures and it was deemed a low priority low risk mission. What the Marines in AR-6 didn't know was that the planet was also home to a tribe of natives that only spoke in body language. So when communication was started, they accidentally offended the people by making unintentionally crude gestures and remarks to the elder's daughter. To make matters worse, their constant talking and eventual screaming as they fell back to the gate only incensed the population even more.

The planet had been deemed "off-limits" to all but linguistics experts and their escort.

He fell back into his seat and looked up at Sam as she leaned on the edge of her desk. Her serious smile was something that creeped him out, albeit in a good way.

"Alright alright… but it's not going to be popular, just a warning."

She got up and rubbed her hands together.

"Alright, Good. That's it I guess. Make sure you pass that information to your subordinates and get to work on those training sessions. I want to have at least 30 percent of them done by the end of the month."

Rodney gave her a depressed look, John drooped his shoulders frustrated as well as he got up. Sam hated being such a mother hen, but it had to be done. John cleared his throat as Rodney was already beginning to leave.

"Rodney? Forgetting something?"

He turned around, and his eyes shot side to side, trying to recall.

"Uhh… no?"

Sheppard made a motion with his hand, as if he were swinging something. Rodney suddenly jumped as if a lightning bolt had hit him.

"Oh right! We've got a request Sam!"

She leaned back on the desk, waiting for the probably ridiculous request.

"Yes? What can I do for you guys?"

Sheppard got up and stood next to Rodney, reinforcing his position. Even standing taller than him, they looked like equals.

"Well you see, we've been thinking about base protocol and how the different departments get along together…"

Rodney continued as if they'd rehearsed this.

"And even though we think you're doing a splendid job…"

"…We've got an idea that might improve morale and overall communication throughout the base…"

"…Which is already great, everybody loves working here, especially with you…"

John turned a slightly annoyed glance to Rodney. Sam scratched her chin, wondering when they'd get to the point.

"Alright... alright guys, my butt is feeling the love, your point?"

Rodney cleared his throat, and then looked to John.

"John here can explain it better… I'll just add whatever he misses."

John gave him an incredulous look back, and shook his head disappointed.

"_What?_ _*Sigh_* Alright…. We've been getting a lot of restless people lately, there's nothing much but work and video games to distract them."

"Well the screens are pretty big here and my guys have done some pretty impressive modifications to video game consoles."

Sam sighed; she felt like a school teacher trying to get kids to give their homework.

"Guys, I'm _really_ busy, get to the point sometime before lunch please."

Rodney checked his watch, and then perked up.

"Oh you're right… it's almost lunch time. Finish up would you Sheppard?"

He gave John a few pats on the shoulder as he walked away, completely unconcerned with helping John promote their idea. John called out to him to come back but knew he wasn't going to. He cursed under his breath and turned back to Sam who was snickering at the situation.

"Don't you start, that's the last thing I need."

Sam sighed as she giggled.

"It's probably just the lack of coffee, he'll get over it. Now seriously, either tell me your idea or get lost. I've got reports to go over and numbers to crunch."

John smirked, he _loved_ being _military_ commander and not _base_ commander. All he did all day was go over training and combat efficiency reports. He usually got most of his work done in a few hours and had the rest of the day to himself if there wasn't any thing going on.

"But your chairs are so comfortable… I'd kill to get a chair like this in my office."

He squeezed the armrests of the chair he'd been sitting on. He leaned on it and tried to make it inconspicuous that he was showing off his muscles to the blonde. She went back to her chair behind her desk and made an unpleasant sound.

"Like you spend any real time in there. But I'm serious John, Idea, or I remove you from my presence."

John realized she wasn't joking and stood up straight, his boyish ideas replaced by the good one he and Rodney had had the other day.

"Alright alright… one word. Olympics."

She raised an eyebrow as she leaned back on her chair and took the inventory sheets off her desk.

"Olympics? Here?"

John nodded and began to draw it out in midair with his hands.

"Yes! Let's organize an Olympics style event for the base! I'm talking puddle jumper races, drone accuracy, RC racing, and all that good stuff!"

She opened her laptop and began to cross check her printed inventory check vs. the computer readout. She thought it over.

"That's a lot of work John, and I'm not sure everybody would like the kinds of things you're suggesting. More than half the base _is _civilian."

He nodded agreeing and leaned on her desk with his palms.

"Yes, you're right, and that's what McKay _would've_ talked about had he stayed, He's already told me he'd be willing to organize that part of the event."

She raised her other eyebrow.

"Rodney said that? Or are you just saying that cuz he left just now?"

John made an irritated movement.

"No no no… You know Rodney; his stomach's the boss of him when Jennifer's not around, and just so you know she thinks it'd be a good thing too."

Sam sighed, the numbers on the screen didn't match the inventory sheet she had in her hands and that meant she'd have to have someone visually inspect the stockroom, which meant time and man-hours. She'd be in here for awhile.

"Alright, I'll let you guys plan it, on one condition."

This time John raised his eyebrows, worried,

"Uhh… Ok. I guess."

She leaned back and grabbed her coffee pot; she then handed it to him and smirked at his befuddled expression.

"Fill that up and bring it back would you sweetie? _Along _with lunch."

John cringed at being called 'sweetie', and thought better of making the witty comment he had thought up.

"Alright alright… if it means we get to race 302s and jumpers together I'll have lunch with you today… Sir."

She laughed at the sheepish manner in which he took the pot and walked out of her office, then even more so when Chuck asked him what he was doing walking around with an empty coffee pot. She loved any chance she had to tease him.

--------------------------------------

"I'm sorry Colonel; run that by me one more time. You want to do _**what** _with my 302's?"

John shrugged, and smiled at Caldwell on the monitor.

"All I'm asking for is a pair of them for the weekend. Daedalus is more than welcome to join us but these fighters could make a big difference in how fun this'll be."

He saw Caldwell sigh, and shake his head in his palm.

"You do realize you're basically asking me to give you millions of dollars of military equipment for what amounts to a joyride correct?"

John held his chin in his fingers; maybe he was going about this the wrong way.

'Well the Blue Angels do the same, and besides, haven't you ever wanted to see how your pilots fare against my jumpers?"

That got Caldwell's attention.

"What are you suggesting?"

John gave him a confident smile, he'd gotten him.

"I'm just saying, a lot of people have been wondering what a 302 can do compared to a Jumper. With the events we're planning, it might be possible to set up a direct competition… All in the interests of military knowledge you know."

Caldwell wasn't stupid, he knew he was getting played but had an idea of his own.

"Oh really? Well then as military commander of Atlantis, the principle base of operations for Jumper command, what would _you_ rather fly?"

John hid his wince, the older Colonel had trapped him and he only had one response that could get the 302s he needed.

"Well… I'm the most experienced with the Jumpers; it gives me an unfair advantage… Besides, I love the 302."

Caldwell smiled, and motioned over to the side, a voice came back telling him how long it would take to reach Atlantis. He turned back to Sheppard and nodded.

"Very well Colonel Sheppard, We'll join you for the Olympics as well as my pilots. I trust that's not the only event we'll be involved in."

Sheppard shook his head and transmitted the document he'd drawn up with Rodney via the subspace transmitter.

"Of course not Colonel, I've just sent your Operations officer a list of all the events we're going to be having, if they have any suggestions for any others please, have them sent to my and Dr McKay's inbox."

Caldwell nodded, and typed something outside of John's field of vision.

"Very well, we'll be in Pegasus in another… 2 days, Oh and Colonel?"

"Yes?"

"Don't scratch the paint."

John chuckled as the screen went off, everything was falling perfectly into place, and evne though he'd have to fly a 302 instead of his trusty jumper, he still felt like it was going to be a great time.

The organization of the event had gone well, and a full 14 events had been created by him and Rodney as well as a few suggestions emailed to him. Races, shooting events, chess, and just about everything in between. There weren't any people on Atlantis who couldn't appreciate at least one of the events coming. He was so happy that when Chuck called him over the radio he answered joyfully.

"Colonel Sheppard, please come in."

"Chuck my good man, what's up?"

"Uh yes sir… You're needed in the control room sir."

He got up and wondered what was going on.

"Am I going to have to wait till I get there to find out why?"

He heard mumbling on the other side, and then Carter's voice came in.

"Yes Sheppard we need you here now."

He lost the smile on his face. She didn't sound pleased.

"Alright, be there in two."

He stepped out of his office, and realised it could use s dusting from underuse. He shook his head and shut off the lights, heading up to the control room 2 floors above him.

He got there faster than he expected, curious as to why everybody looked expectantly at him.

"Hey… Uhh… Do I have something on my face?"

He heard a voice come from behind him; the almost nasal and irritated tone told him exactly who it was, even the intonation and words themselves proved who it was.

"Sheppard! How about you turn around and stop acting like an idiot?"

He turned, and saw her face on the monitor, she smiled politely, but it did little to hide her annoyance.

"Larrin… can't say I was expecting you. You'll pardon me if I don't have the coffee and cake out for you."

Most of the control room staff snickered, they'd heard of the chemistry between the two, but seeing it for themselves was so much more entertaining.

On the screen, the spunky looking woman went from annoyed to more sensual.

"Ah, I'm disappointed Sheppard, I'd have thought you'd be more gracious seeing all I've _done_ for _you_."

John wanted to shut her up, he wanted to have the argument in private, but with Sam and Chuck and god knows who else eavesdropping now, he tried to be civil.

"We can talk about that _later_… For now, why the call?"

Carter cleared her throat and motioned over to one of the screens hanging on the walls.

"Actually, it's a visit Colonel…"

On the screen, a 2 dimensional representation of the solar system showed the planet Atlantis was on, and an Aurora class warship in orbit. How it had gotten there without being detected was something of a mystery. Larrin spoke up, seeing Sheppard's half confused, half worried look.

"Oh don't have a hissy fit Sheppard; I'm not here to tie you up… At least not yet."

Some of the technicians cracked, stifling their laughter with their hands. Larrin noticed immediately and smiled, obviously pleased with herself. Sheppard closed his eyes and tried to will this all away, but alas, all he heard was choked laughter.

"Yes… well, since you're not here to hurt me, _I hope, _what are you doing here?"

She pressed a few buttons on her own console, and then showed it to the Atlanteans.

"See this? They're schematics for our energy weapons. I'm willing to do some trading with you _if_ you come and give us some help with the ancient systems here."

Sheppard gulped, his "this cannot end well" synapse fired and he'd learned to trust that specific part of his brain as it was usually right. He looked over to Carter who gave him a gentle nod. Sheppard shrugged his shoulders in a "do I have to?" movement, and sighed when Carter nodded again, giving him the "it's worth it" look with a little exasperation.

"Alright Larrin… Are you going to be docking or am I…"

As he spoke, a bright flash of light enveloped him,

Chuck looked over to Carter who sighed reluctantly.

"Maybe we should have warned him?"

Carter, amused by their combined trickery, smiled at her trusted gate technician.

"And miss his reaction when he gets back?"

----------------------------------

Sheppard was pissed. This was _not _what he'd been expecting when the day began. Sitting on the control chair and seeing Larrin staring at him made him nervous. At least he wasn't tied up.

"So Sheppard, anything?"

John checked the screens that passed before his eyes, or rather his mind. The systems Larrin was asking for were locked and he didn't know why.

"Well… I dunno why, but the landing systems are locked out. Have your guys been messing around with the computers again?"

Larrin gave him a sarcastic smile.

"Don't be coy Sheppard, of course my people have been 'messing around'. We've gotten just about everything but the landing struts, the docking ramp and some of the more complex databases unlocked."

John sighed, and pushed himself back into the chair, he started looking through the information presented before him. He passed the time by trying to keep things light between him and Larrin.

"So… What's up with you and your people? Haven't seen you since Asuras."

She snickered.

"Are you actually interested or are you just trying to distract me?"

John mentally sighed, Larrin could be so difficult.

"Well if it's been that boring, make up something interesting."

He was so busy going over the database that went by his face, that he didn't notice Larrin come closer.

"Everything around here is '_interesting'_ Sheppard. Living on a ship like this can be a real adventure."

He could smell her now, was she wearing perfume?

"I'm sure it is, seeing as this is probably the last Aurora warship in existence."

She chuckled, proud.

"Yep, and it's so nice to be in charge of it too. _All mine._"

John continued working, he found one of the problems in the database, one of her engineers must have tried to manually open the landing struts and it caused a feedback loop that prevented the ship from opening it with the regular systems. It was odd, they should have easily realized teh mistake.

"Found something… Tell your men to remove the bypass they installed into the rear landing strut and you should have full control again."

She turned around and barked the order into her wrist communicator. She turned again and smiled at Sheppard.

"Well, that's good work there Sheppard!"

She stuck her foot out and kicked him in the leg playfully. He winced and gave her an annoyed look.

"Ow, this is how you reward good work? Remind me not to piss you off… as if I needed anymore reminders…"

He rubbed his chin appreciatively, recalling what a good right hook she had. She smiled and held her hand out,

"Alright alright… I'll go easy on you… for now… You hungry?"

He raised an eyebrow, curious as to her intentions.

"You offering?"

She nodded and took his hand, dragging him out of the chair unceremoniously.

"Yes, and you have to accept, otherwise, I'll be _very_ disappointed."

He relented and followed her, shaking his head as he spoke.

"Far be it from me to disappoint you…:"

She shot him a hostile smile, and opened the hatch.

"Careful Sheppard, I've got my rope ready if I need it."

John knew she'd do it. But he also knew she knew that Atlantis had every weapon locked on her ship, ready to fire. He would _not _get outwitted by her again and he made sure to convey that with his words.

"Can it wait till after lunch?"

She turned and smiled brightly at him.

"Always thinking with your stomach Sheppard…"

------------------------------------

"These schematics aren't all that great you know. It's not like we don't have Tollan, Goa'uld, Tok'ra, Asgard and Ancient weapons already. Plus all the modified versions we've been working on."

Sam waved her hand dismissing Rodney's argument.

"Yes yes I know I know, but you've seen Ronon's blaster. Wouldn't you like to be able to build a few of those?"

He shrugged and motioned to Lorne beside him.

"I'm a scientist not a soldier. Ask him!"

The group of them were inside Rodney's lab, going over the information Larrin had sent them. Lorne, caught off guard, cited off what was on his mind.

"Well… It's a nice gun, but I still prefer a P-90. It's the same problem with the staff weapon. Sure it's got lots of power, but little penetration and a slow rate of fire."

Sam nodded, agreeing with his assessment.

"True, but we can't build staff weapons. And these are a lot smaller and easier to handle. It might make a good sidearm replacement for our Berettas. And we can always do some modifications. Right Rodney?"

He mumbled, having half a donut in his mouth.

"Mahbay."

Sam smirked, and motioned for Lorne to follow her. Rodney downed the donut with a swig of his coffee and lamented the coming loss of his favourite beverage. Lorne reported to Sam what the scans of the Traveller controlled Aurora had yielded.

"We've done some detailed scans; the travellers have done some serious modifications to the ship. It's got several extra turrets installed along the fore as well as the aft sections. It's also giving off a few different power signatures. So I'm guessing they've installed their own power systems to amplify the ship's own system."

Sam nodded, having assumed they'd do as much.

"Well they do live in Space, and with their own ships starting to deteriorate, it makes sense to make the Aurora as much theirs as they can."

Lorne pursed his lips and smiled.

"I wonder how Colonel Sheppard's doing… He's never the same when Larrin's around."

Sam couldn't help it. She felt a little jealous. Not that she would ever act on it,

"Well… Let's just hope Colonel Sheppard remembers that he's just there to help with their repairs and conversion..,"

Lorne chuckled.

"I dunno boss, Pegasus women just seem to want him. I think it's the hair."

Sam laughed out loud.

"Ha! Yeah… but can you imagine him with any other kind of hair?"

Lorne laughed as well as they walked down the passage heading back to the control room.

"He came to me once asking for a favour at like 6 in the morning. He'd run out of hair gel and Daedalus was another 4 days away. He gave me 50 bucks for half of the gel I had left."

Sam chuckled heartily; she could _so_ see Sheppard being so nitpicky about his well maintained hair, though she had to ask.

"How'd he look with flat hair?"

Lorne shuddered.

"Like he just had his 6th birthday…"

Sam tried to imagine it, but was disturbed by how her imagination drew the picture. Though she had trouble _not_ thinking about how she'd caught him singing Johnny Cash in his birthday suit a few weeks ago.

"Thank god he's got plenty of it."

They laughed together as they stepped into the transporter. Sam fought her instinctual urge that shs somehow owned Sheppard, It was so stupid to think so but still, she hoped he didn't do anything stupid or impulsive while with Larrin.

---------------------------------------

"Don't tell me you don't eat meat. You tell me that and I'll lose all respect I have for you."

John, eying the strange looking meat in front of him, poked it gingerly, expecting it to start slithering away.

"Uhh no… I do eat meat, but usually it's a bit deader and less… slimy…"

Larrin used a combat knife to cut her own portion and put it into her mouth sensually, sucking the sauce off it then chewing slowly. She swallowed very noticeably and looked pleasured. John fought to keep from shivering.

"Are you sure? It's so… _tasty."_

This was mindnumbingly frustrating. Half of the time, Larrin gave him the biggest hints that she wanted him, the other half she was either kicking his ass or threatening to throw him out the airlock. It was oddly erotic.

He cleared his throat, and cut a small piece off the meat, he looked at it as he held it with the fork like device Larrin's assistant had given him. He was very apprehensive about eating it.

"What? You're rejecting my hospitality?"

Larrin's voice was confrontational. He figured an upset stomach was better than a bruised jaw. He put the meat into his mouth and chewed. Surprisingly, it tasted quite similar to a roast beef with some kind of vegetable sauce. It wasn't the best he'd tasted, but good enough that he thought he could stomach it.

"Well… it's… not bad."

Larrin smiled and leaned back, yawning. Whether she knew it or not it was highlighting her very nice looking body features. John had a hard time not staring.

"_What is she up to?"_

Larrin finished her yawn and put her elbows down on the table, she looked with a knowing glare to Sheppard.

"That's more like it. It's hard to keep meat fresh when you're spending most of your time exploring out there."

John swallowed and cut another piece, bigger this time as he didn't want to risk offending her and incurring her wrath.

"Exploring? I'd have thought you'd know most of the galaxy by now."

She chuckled, the kind of laugh that one does to someone who didn't know what they were saying.

"Oh Sheppard… if only you knew."

Sheppard felt offended this time, and he wanted to convey that in a nice way.

"How bout you enlighten me then?"

Larrin smiled, happy that he'd asked, she shook her head though.

"When we're done eating, I'll show you, how about that?"

John thought about it. There was definitely something going on that he didn't know about, and he wasn't exactly itching to know what it was.

-----------------------------------------

Sam stood at the balcony, taking a break from her work. Thankfully, she'd gotten most of the day's work done with Lorne's help and now she was just curious as to how Sheppard was doing up in the ship. She could see the faint lights from the ship move across the now dark sky, drifting between the stars.

"Sam! It's nice to see you on your feet instead of on your butt."

Sam turned, curious as to who would speak in such a casual yet crude tone. She saw Keller standing at the passage chuckling to herself. Sam smiled and replied just as sarcastically.

"Well you keep telling me to take it easy; I don't need doctors in 2 galaxies poking and prodding me anytime I drop by."

Keller snickered and stood next to Sam; they both leaned on the railing and looked up into the sky.

"Is that the ship up there? Looks so bright."

She pointed at the star that seemed to move across the sky. Sam nodded, and breathed deeply.

"Yeah… Sheppard said he was gonna spend the night up there so he can get some more work done. He says the travellers might be smart, but without the ATA gene they're causing problems in their systems. He even asked me to send Rodney up there tomorrow so they can get it all dealt with."

Sam was secretly annoyed at his decision, _why had he chosen to stay?_ She couldn't keep her mind from making assumptions and the longer she listened to herself, the more she believed herself. Keller smiled suggestively, only exacerbating her dilemma.

"Oh so he's gonna stay up there huh? Can't say I'm surprised, must be _very _romantic to be up on that ship in the night sky."

Sam, feeling jealous again, tried to act ignorant.

"Well technically, there's no day or night at the height they're at."

Keller scoffed sarcastically, amused at her friends response.

"Well be that as it may, that Larrin chick really throws him for a curve. Rumour is they… well you know. And with him staying up there it's not going to quell that rumour anytime soon."

Sam pursed her lips and sighed.

'It's funny you know… in less than 2 days we're going to have an Olympic weekend, and gossip isn't one of the registered sports."

Keller chuckled, and put her hand on Sam's shoulder supportively.

"Oh don't worry, it'll pass, it always does. But as far as John Sheppard is concerned…"

Keller made a suggestive expression with her eyebrows, and then laughed softly. They stood there for a few moments, until finally Sam decided to ask what was on her mind.

"Jen, I know you're… unavailable right now… but what are your thoughts on Colonel Sheppard? You know…"

Keller raised both her eyebrows, surprised by the question.

"Uhhh… you aren't saying you're…"

Sam held her hands up defensively.

"Oh no no no… not at all. Remember, I'm the boss, Can't?"

Keller recalled their earlier conversation and nodded accepting it.

"Oh…Ok… well… uhh I guess he's kinda cute… He's definitely attractive in a… well manly sense. _I'd_ call him sexy."

Sam chuckled, she certainly knew what that felt like.

"Yeah I know what you mean, he's so… confident."

Keller nodded, but then shrugged.

"Well yeah… but I dunno, he's got such a bad reputation."

Sam was curious.

"Oh? Like what? All I've heard is about Chaya, the ancient who protects that sanctuary. The way she… shared herself with him."

She actually knew what that felt like... it was completely different than anything she thought a normal person could imagine. Just another thing she and Sheppard had in common. Of course she wasn't going to tell Keller that.

"Yeah… he never did explain that completely. All he'd say was that it was 'cool'."

They laughed a bit, and mocked Sheppard's perspicacity. Sam tried to push the thought of Sheppard and Larrin out of her mind and decided to grab a light snack before heading for bed. Keller joined her and she appreciated the company. All the while, up in the night sky, the traveller ship moved silently.

---------------------------------------

"The hell _is_ that_?"_

Larrin smiled, and brought up the next picture. The accretion disk of a black hole had gotten very close to a red giant star, and the massive gravitational forces were actually drawing a long and seemingly thin stream of the sun into it, creating a swirl as it was sucked in.

"I know… it's breathtaking. Can you believe we almost missed it?"

John was immersed, he'd seen a lot in his time in Pegasus, including a black hole when SG-1 had arrived to disable the Ori supergate in the Milky Way. But this easily took the cake in amazing visuals.

"I've never seen anything like it... I'da thought a sun would blow up like that"

She nodded, and changed the picture to a graph.

"Our scientists say it's got another 40 or 50 years before it loses enough mass for it to blow. I'm hoping I'm still around then to see it."

John nodded, wondering if he'd still be around then.

"Well, your people have survived this long. I don't think it's hard to imagine you surviving for a long time."

Larrin smiled, but there was something behind it that made Sheppard curious, but not curious enough to risk asking. She replied with a slightly less than usual enthusiasm.

"Yeah… that's what I'm hoping."

She hesitated a moment, and then pulled up another picture. A planet with a double ring that went around the planet at different axes, certainly something Sheppard didn't see often.

"I can see you've been busy. I'da thought after Asuras you'da tried to settle down a bit."

She gave him an offended look. He braced internally for the slap he knew was coming. It never came.

"Well… you're right… after Asuras a lot of our people weren't too hot on being involved in intergalactic politics anymore. But we can talk about that later."

She shut down the console, and looked at Sheppard with disturbingly caring eyes.

"I'll show you to the quarters we got ready for you. I'm sure you're pretty tired."

John was scared. He'd agreed only because he didn't want to bring Larrin onto the base and have the entire expedition see her embarrass him and god know who else with her utter and complete lack of shame. Then again, he had the same problem and knew it would only end badly, except for her, since she didn't have to stick around.

So he bit the bullet, and when Larrin offered to have quarters set up for him on the ship, he accepted much to her surprise. The inevitable multi-week myriad of rumours that would await him back on Atlantis, as well as the inescapable Dr McKay and his penchant for gossip was just barely worth it to see the look of genuine shock on her face. He only hoped Sam wasn't going to get pissed since he'd only given her a very weak reason for staying. He'd have to have a chat with her as soon as possible.

She led him through the corridors, herself still getting a bit accustomed to the ancient design of the ship. She opened the quarters reserved for the ships second in command and waved him in. Her smile had the typical sensuality about it.

"Hope you're comfy in there, I can always… _turn the heat up…_ if you'd like."

John fought the image in his head; _no way_ was he going there. No way… Larrin would probably leave him limping for a few days… though he did have a certain appreciation for any woman in the shape she was in… a physique like that was hard to maintain.

"Sheppard?"

He had to admit, most military girls were too gung-ho for his tastes. He'd tested the waters with Sam and so far it was going fine, but clearly she was far more than a soldier. He couldn't help himself as he compared Larrin and Sam's physiques, adding in their personalities as he felt a little guilty and wanted to lean the scale in a particular direction.

"Sheeeeppaaaard?"

He looked around the room distractedly, it was more of an instinctual reaction that anything else, and he didn't hear a word Larrin said as he was too busy thinking.

"Sheppard, Heellllooo!?"

He snapped out of the illusory world he'd been in as she waved her hands in front of him, he nodded to her.

"Yeah sure… no wait! No NO… I'm…I'm sure the _heat_ will be just fine thank you. Sorry… just tired."

She gave him a knowing smile, and John realized that she knew _everything_ she did to a man. He shivered involuntarily as she turned around and left him in the room.

"You need anything Sheppard and just call. _Good night_."

She said the last bit in a seductive voice. Sheppard took a deep breath and hoped the shower was working, and then thought better of it seeing as they'd probably be monitoring him.

-----------------------------------

Sam slept fitfully, every hour she'd wake up and stare at the ceiling.

_"Damn you John."_

She knew it was pointless to think about it. What he did was his business just like what she did was her business. If he chose to stay on the Traveller ship for any purpose, it was his choice and she'd agreed to it.

"_Damnit"_

She grabbed her pillow and fluffed it, feeling it get flat and unsupportive. She blinked hard, trying to get the heavy feeling off her eyelids.

"_You better behave John."_

It was ridiculous; she had no control over him. Why did she think that just because he was somewhat interested in her that he wouldn't be interested in some other woman? He _was _an attractive man, and he clearly knew it from the way he acted. That and the way Rodney called him Kirk frequently should have warned her.

"_He's probably with her now."_

She sighed, and leaned over to her bedside drawer. She pulled out a bottle of melatonin and took out a pair of the pills.

"_Goddamn you John Sheppard."_

She swallowed the pills and grabbed the teddy bear he'd won her back at the Valentine's day carnival, she hugged it and lay down, trying to get at least some sleep.

She knew it was a ridiculous notion, John Sheppard _did_ have a reputation and it was usually pretty accurate. She tried not to think about how she'd opened a part of her heart she hadn't opened in a long time, and how closing it would hurt just as much as it had last time.

Silently, with only her thoughts to join her, she fell asleep again, hoping that Sheppard wasn't as bad as she was starting to believe, and that she might get more than just an hour of sleep.


	4. Travelling Olympics Part Two

_**Travelling Olympics (Part Two) **_

**-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Setting:** Atlantis, Traveller Aurora Class Warship

**Main Characters**: John Sheppard, Samantha Carter, Larrin

**Other Characters:** McKeller, Evan Lorne

**Type of Story: **Romance, Humour, Drama

**Author's notes:** For the purposes of ultra enjoyment, listen to Lady Gaga – Poker Face (Jody Den Broeden Mix) as you are reading the interactions between Larrin and Sheppard.

_Oh yeah. Yummy._

----------------------------------------

Rodney searched through the cupboards, looking, hoping.

"_It can't all be gone…"_

He was getting desperate, he'd gone through his stash and now it was all gone. He'd raided Sam's office when she was gone but nothing. He was so sure she had a private stash but apparently she knew how to hide it properly.

Behind him, he hadn't noticed Jennifer standing at the doorway to the kitchen, having followed him from his office. She was smiling and generally enjoying seeing the genius doctor suffer. She kept quiet and stealthily began to work on something by the refrigerator

McKay didn't notice, he burrowed into the stocks of dried spices, hoping to find enough for just one glass, that's all he wanted, just one before he went to bed.

"_Come on… there was a TON of it here yesterday!"_

He opened the pantry, and after knocking over some of the boxes of random foods, found a crate underneath full of lemons.

He backed away, suddenly terrified, but then the idea came to him.

_  
"Those bastards!"_

He looked around, and saw straight into Jennifer's face a few meters away. He was so determined to find his prize though; he gave it no second thought. He didn't even notice Jennifer laughing hysterically at his complete one-mindedness.

Rodney grabbed a pair of oven mitts, and wrapped a cooking apron around his arms, he then put another apron on normally, and finally used another to wrap around his head protecting him.

In his ridiculous garb, he picked up a pair of salad tongs, and very gingerly used them to start dismantling the pyramid of anaphylactic yellow grenades in front of him. He was so sure that they'd used it as a shield to try and protect the stockpile that was left.

Now Jennifer had gone from being amused, to downright amazed. She'd known Rodney could be determined, but this was ridiculous! If he ever decided to put his mind to anything but his ego, there would be very little to stop him. Not even citrus it seemed. She began the percolations and waited to see if he'd notice.

One by one, the deadly fruit were stacked well away from the crate McKay was investigating, slowly but surely clearing away the impromptu protection.

"_Ha ha! Nothing can stop me! I am unbeatable!"_

He grabbed the last lemon with the tongs and victoriously tossed it to the side; he was very careful and peered over, looking into the crate.

_  
"What…? No… no… This isn't fair!! That's not fair!"_

He stumbled back, seeing the bottom of the crate with no coffee to be found. He fell back, landing hard on his butt, ignoring the pain. The shock was too much and he sat there catatonic for a few moments.

Jennifer, finally finished with the percolator, picked up the now full 2 mugs on the table and snuck in behind him. She carefully crouched and put her head on his shoulder, seeing how he'd react.

He still didn't notice her, the gravity of the situation still pulling on him.

"Rodney?"

He noticed something, it was so far off and hardly noticeable, but he could swear he recognized it.

"You still all there Rodney?"

It was stronger now, more full and enticing, he could almost feel it wrap around him, keeping him warm and comforted. He turned, finally consciously looking.

And he finally saw it, the rich scent, the strong looks, and the sheer beauty and support it gave him.

Jennifer moved back a moment, taking full amusement at Rodney's epiphany. His face was a mix of shock, lust, and pure and simple need.

"Jennifer… Is that _coffee_ I'm smelling?"

She nodded, and struggled not to burst out laughing. She handed the mug with the darker innards to him, fully understanding that even if he loved her, he also loved coffee and in all fairness, coffee was here first.

He took the mug, and relished in the warmth that now passed into his hands, he took a _deep_ breath in from the mug, feeling the particles of the godly drink bond to his nasal cavity and refresh his very soul.

"You like?"

Rodney, with only 2 cares in the world left, nodded as if he'd just taken a full shot of morphine with a cocaine chaser. His sudden lack of advanced evolution was prevalent in his words.

"Rodney... like."

Jen giggled, and sidled up next to him on the floor of the kitchen. She didn't bother to tell him that this was the new coffee that the expedition had found, she just knew that it would be a few days before Rodney realised the difference when his joints didn't hurt as much.

"Well… Jennifer like too. Come to bed Rodney, its cold without you there."

Finally out of his drug-like stupor, Rodney held up one finger to signal her to wait a moment. He lifted the mug and with ever so much deliberation, the kind of deliberation a master wine taster does in appraising the world's best wines, he sniffed, and then ever so lightly pressed the edge of the mug against his lips.

Jennifer wrapped her arms around Rodney and giggled at his actions. He took a sip, and swirled it around his mouth, letting it completely overcome his senses. He then turned back to Jen, and put his own arm around her drawing her closer.

"Perfect."

-------------------------------------

Sheppard was expecting something like this, but the way it happened threw him for a curve.

He'd been dozing, not exactly sleeping but not exactly awake. He'd learned to do this in Afghanistan where just about anywhere you were, there was a threat of attack. He could sense the soft pillow underneath him, but he could also sense the dream and even became slightly lucid in it.

He noticed the door to his room open, and Larrin stood there, one part of his mind saw her in lingerie, straight from the hottest shelves of Victoria secret, her seductive smile and 'come hither' look turned him on.

the other, more rational part of his mind saw her standing there, in her typical leather style clothing with the same smile, but more of a "come hither and I'll beat your ass silly" look. She wasn't wearing her usual pants and had opted for a miniskirt reminiscent of the robes the Ancients liked so much. He was a little disturbed, but not too surprised that this turned him on as well.

"Wake your ass up Sheppard, Nap time is over!"

He shifted around, trying to figure out a way to convince her to give him another 5 minutes. He knew it wouldn't work and he'd probably end up on the wrong side of fist yet again. He wondered if maybe he had some deep subconscious desire for masochism, seeing as how he got hurt so frequently.

"Did nap time ever begin? Jeez I could swear you left 5 minutes ago."

He felt something land next to him. It wasn't her thank god, but he picked up the clothes she'd tossed him.

"We need to get to work, and I doubt you want to walk around in those stinky clothes. Hurry up and change."

He stretched his arms and saw she wasn't moving away from the door.

"Ever heard of privacy?"

She smiled seductively.

"Alright alright… can't promise I won't peek though."

She closed the door and waited outside. John was glad that he at least knew she was out there and wouldn't have a repetition of his second date with Sam. Even he was a little disturbed by the thought of himself singing Johnny Cash in his birthday suit.

He changed quickly; fully recognizant of the fact that she wasn't kidding that she might peek. He splashed his face with water and redid his hair, the gel from the day before continuing its job. He stretched again and wondered what Larrin might have in store for him today as he opened the door.

-------------------------------------------

"Hey Sam, you sleep ok? I'd give you some coffee but _someone_ decided it was unhealthy and switched it for liquefied fish beans."

Sam was not in the mood. Even after taking some melatonin she'd only slept 5 straight hours. Were there not so many witnesses in the mess hall, she might have assaulted the genius doctor.

"_Shove it Rodney, another word and I'll jam a lemon in you"_

She smiled politely, and made sure to say something completely different than what she thought.

"Maybe if you tried it, you wouldn't find it so bad. Wonder if I can find a bagel around here somewhere…"

She stepped into the queue for breakfast, and felt a bit alone. Everybody respected her and almost nobody except for Rodney and John would ever spark up a conversation with her. Whether out of respect for the chain of command, or fear, she didn't know. Jennifer was another person she talked to but it wasn't the same, girl talk could get so catty at times.

She heard the rumours as the staff talked amongst themselves, most having to do with John and his overnight field trip to the Traveller Warship. Many were convinced that he'd found another Pegasus hussy infatuated with him, but some were defending him, although not very effectively.

She wanted to defend him, she wanted to say that he was just doing what he thought was best for Atlantis, and deep down inside she knew that it was true, but after hearing so much, and seeing with her own eyes the way he interacted with Larrin. It was hard for her to accept it.

She grabbed her breakfast and joined Rodney and Jennifer, both whom had much to suspect about what the travellers really wanted. After a few minutes of it, Sam changed the subject by asking Rodney about their Olympics.

"So Rodney, what games did you and Sheppard finally settle on?"

Rodney began to speak with his mouth full of eggs, but was silenced by Jennifer's palm slapping against his chest. He choked momentarily, and then finally finished chewing and swallowed.

"Well, for the more daring, we've got 3 racing events, one a pure speed event. One that tests manoeuvrability and another that combines the two."

Sam nodded, took a sip of the so called liquefied fish beans, and smacked her lips.

"What else?"

"For the gun crazy people, there's skeet shooting, long range accuracy, and an endurance course with targets. We're going to be using the west pier for most of that stuff so it's well out of the way."

Jennifer sighed, uninterested in either of the two sets of events.

"Come on, get to the good stuff."

Sam smirked, 'good' was subjective. Rodney cleared his throat, and then spoke in a much more respectful tone.

'Yes well... seeing as many of the civilian population aren't into guns, high speed, or escaping certain death, there's an entirely separate group of events specifically for them, a few regular sports like football and soccer, as well as chess, and Math Stump."

Sam furrowed her brow.

"Math Stump?"

Rodney smiled, obviously proud.

"Well yes, we do have some of the biggest names in science on base Sam. They want to show each other just how much they know and how they can answer questions none other can."

Sam giggled.

"That's so nerdy… I love it."

The group laughed at the inherent love for geeks on the base, it made sense, who else would keep the city from doing untold horrors to the less aptly minded?

--------------------------------------

"You know Larrin; a lot of these problems are coming from trying to install manual bypasses. If you'd have stayed longer last time we could have helped you out then."

Sheppard's cerebral cortex was deep in the Ancient systems of the warship, when he felt a pair of hands come down on his shoulders from behind and the soft warm rush of air down his neck.

"You saying you wish I'd stuck around?"

He resisted the urge to shiver; she was getting more daring every half hour. This was the second time she'd made actual physical contact with him that wasn't hostile and it scared him.

"_For the love of God woman, stop teasing me! You're killing me here… what the hell do you actually want!"_

He'd abandoned the idea that the Travellers actually needed Atlantis's help in repairing these systems, Larrin was up to something and only time would tell what it was.

"Maybe…"

She snickered, and waiting a moment longer than felt comfortable, finally let go of him and took a few steps around to face him.

"Tsk Tsk Tsk… _naughty_ Sheppard."

He buried himself in an archive full of engine status reports, hoping it would distract him. He'd just about finished all he could from a software perspective, and all that was left was actually manual labour, Thank God McKay showed up an hour ago. He'd had 15 minutes of non-insinuative speech from Larrin, and the more easily controllable and comebacktoable gossip talk from Rodney. A few multi-syllabic words here, a few threats of lemon insertion there and he was silenced.

Rodney was busy at the moment, helping some of the more adept Traveller engineers reroute power from a non-essential system directly to their refrigeration units. A pretty easy task but with his expertise, made all the quicker. Now he was thinking of his best escape from this dungeon of miniskirts and sexual innuendo.

"Well, with all this done and McKay here, any real need for me here?"

He pulled out of the chair and leaned forward, constant use of the chair made him a little dizzy and he blinked a few times.

"Oh I'm sure there's _things_ you could do for me while you're here."

He highly liked, and disliked, her particular choice of wording. It put images into his mind, naughty, naughty images.

"Err… yes well… unless you can think of one I can do right now, I should be getting back to Atlantis."

She nodded absentmindedly, looking at him and apparently thinking.

"Well… there is one thing I wanted you to look at. Something kinda _special_."

John's mind jumped. The metaphorical ass of his brain had just been stabbed with a red hot poker and he wondered what she meant as his mind danced around confused. There wasn't much he could do but go along with it though.

"Uhh… okay…"

She giggled, knowing full well what John was thinking. She gave him a 'you're being naughty' look and waved for him to follow. He reluctantly got up and stepped in behind her.

She walked slowly, pushing with the ball of her feet as she walked. He couldn't help but notice that it highlighted her now exposed legs. He had to take a deep breath to keep control of his heart rate.

She circled the passages, taking the extra long route to get to wherever they were going. She spoke through the whole journey, on a topic that was so different that John was now terrified.

"So Sheppard, ever have any regrets about being on Atlantis?"

"Uhh… well no… not really."

She turned her head and gave him a sunny smile.

"Oh? Any particular reasons?"

John didn't know where she was taking this, but it seemed innocent enough… which coming from Larrin meant trouble ahead.

"Hmm… I guess I'm comfortable there. Military commander has its perks."

She turned again, this time walking backwards as she spoke.

"Still, don't you wish you weren't tied down, stuck on a base?"

He shrugged, trying to figure out what she wanted.

"Well it's not like I'm chained down. I'm always going out for missions and exploring."

She turned around again, speaking carefree.

"That's not the same, there's so many things out there you can't reach with the Stargates. Like that accretion disk I showed you yesterday."

He nodded, agreeing with her thinking.

"True, I guess that'd be interesting. But I'm needed on Atlantis, with the Wraith still out there it's the best place for me."

She nodded back, seemingly understanding. Though her words said different.

"I get that. You're married to your job."

John chuckled.

"Oh don't gimme that. I'll admit, sometimes I wish… sometimes I wish I could leave... but Earth doesn't have any big thing for me."

She smiled slyly.

"Who said anything about going back to Earth?"

That confused him. Where else could he go? He wasn't too sure he wanted to continue this conversation and decided to change the subject.

"Well… I don't know… anyways, what are you gonna show me anyway?"

She made an offended movement with her head, but smiled politely.

"Here… see for yourself."

Finally they reached their destination, the hanger bay. There were a bunch of jumpers lined up, though one looked like it had some heavy modifications done to it. Larrin seemed drawn to it.

"Ah, you've noticed it. Yeah it's… special. Wanna take a look?"

He nodded, drawn to the jumper as well.

"I'm guessing that's what you brought me here for."

She giggled, and motioned for him to move ahead. She tapped the control and the door opened.

"Don't be shy… I know you'll _love_ it."

She felt his hormones crying, pleading to be set free. God he hated finding her so hot.

------------------------------------

"Sure Boss, something wrong?"

Sam smiled, and handed Lorne her tablet.

"No no… just didn't get a good night sleep. I _really_ appreciate this Evan; consider myself in your debt."

Lorne chuckled, and inputted his personal codes into the tablet.

"Like I don't owe you twenty already."

She chuckled softly and gave Lorne a friendly hug. She was glad that he'd come here from the SGC, it always felt a little more like home with familiar faces around.

She'd asked him to take over for the rest of the day, she'd gotten all the hard work done and all that was left was day to day status reports. The IOA might wonder why she took the half-day, but she figured it was worth a few questions, she needed some time right now.

A few people gave her curious looks as she left her office and headed down the tower. She knew who she wanted to talk to but she wasn't sure if they had the time.

A few minutes passed, and she made her way to the infirmary. She wasn't too surprised to see Keller leaned over a table working on a computer. She seemed tired, almost wishing for a break.

"Jen?"

Jennifer turned, and smiled at Sam.

"Hey Sam, everything alright? Need something?"

She walked up and stood next to Keller so she could speak quietly.

"No no… that's umm… that's not why I'm here. I actually wanted to see if you could talk for a minute."

Keller nodded and saved the file she was working on. She turned and waited expectantly. Sam felt a bit awkward, but needed to talk.

"Uhh, can we go somewhere a little more private?"

Keller furrowed her brow slightly, Sam's tone worried her.

"Sure Sam… is there a problem?"

Sam shook her head, but whispered.

"I need to talk… and I don't trust psychologists."

Keller nodded and shut her computer off. She got up and tried to think of where they could talk. The nearest balcony was a few rooms down and it made a decent enough private office.

Sam followed her without a word, the worry barely noticeable in her stride. Though Keller thought that anything that could worry a USAF Colonel and a PHD had to be serious.

Finally, they reached the balcony. Double checking to make sure no one was around, Keller turned back to Sam.

"Alright, what's wrong Sam?"

Sam took a deep breath. She'd rehearsed how she'd say this in the least emotional way.

"Look… Umm… Do you remember Valentine's Day?"

Keller raised an eyebrow, and then looked to the left for a moment, remembering the night.

"Uhh yeah, something… happen then?"

Sam sighed; the next part was a little harder to say.

"Well… I had a lot of fun… and I sorta made a bet with Colonel Sheppard…"

Keller opened her mouth and covered it in surprise. She smiled slightly and couldn't help it.

"Oh my god, you're not saying…?"

Sam shook her head vehemently; she struck out almost defensively with a barrage of 'No's that left Keller amused.

"…No no no… no no… nothing like what you're thinking… It's more complicated than that…"

Sam stretched her lips, finding it harder and harder to keep going.

"I had a lot of fun ok? And… well... I kinda bet him I'd go out with him again if he won me a teddy bear… I know I know… stupid bet. But he was being so cocky I wanted to try and throw him off… didn't work."

Keller giggled, she felt like such a schoolgirl talking about stuff like this.

"Ok… I'll leave all my snarky comments for the end of this obviously hilarious story."

Sam got an astoundingly fierce expression on her face, it said all the words Keller needed to hear.

"Alright alright… oh and don't worry… Doctor Patient Confidentiality."

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. At least that was out of the way.

"Ok… *whew* this is hard… umm... well… remember I went to the Athosians last month? With Sheppard?"

Keller hid her shock again. Somehow she resisted commenting and nodded for Sam to continue. She did, but she gave Keller an exasperated look.

'Well… originally I was just going to go and tell him we couldn't keep going out like that… you know… I'm his superior officer, his direct commander, all that stuff… But when we were there… he was so… damn…"

She couldn't finish it; she turned away and started laughing at herself, why was she finding this so hard?"

Keller put her hand on her shoulder, supporting her in the general way she'd learned how.

"Well… to be honest I'm not too surprised… you two always did get along really well."

Sam licked her lips; her throat was suddenly very dry.

"He just… I dunno, I've had _a lot_ of guys come onto me. Jeez for awhile back then I couldn't go 2 months without some guy doing some stupid idiot male thing to try and impress me."

Keller snickered.

"I know what you mean. Half the marines on base asked me out already…Guess they think a doctor's easier to get to…"

Sam chuckled, she wasn't surprised.

"In any case… well, we kinda got a little too close… Nothing happened! At least nothing… _improper_. He was so calm through the whole thing, just that nonchalant attitude he's got. He made me feel so comfortable and well… we sorta came to the decision that we'd go out again… that was a month ago and we haven't been able to do anything since. And now…"

Keller nodded, finally understanding.

"So… this whole thing with Larrin… ah. I get it... uhh… sorry about last night then."

Sam sighed with some laughter; she squeezed Keller's hand that was on her shoulder. Keller let out a breath of amazement.

"Well… that's… quite the problem there Sam… Not sure what I can really do to help."

Sam already knew what she was going to do; she just wanted a second opinion on a specific aspect.

"I just want to ask you something… I know you and Rodney were kinda bouncing back and forth for awhile… I guess I just want to know if it's worth it. I mean… is it worth it to have a… something like that… even out here?"

This time it was Keller who hesitated. She hadn't talked about Rodney with anyone.

"Oh… uhh… well… I guess the short answer is yes. I love Rodney and he can be such a sweetheart… sometimes he can be… eccentric. But he loves me back. And that's worth it."

Sam sighed again, suddenly depressed.

"Thanks… now I've just got to find out how he feels, and whether I feel the same way…. Can't I just learn to speak ancient, or come up with some equation that'll provide limitless energy?"

Keller laughed.

"I think you'll have an easier time ascending than getting through this."

They both laughed, and Sam wished she could ascend, if only to find out what was going on on that ship.

------------------------------------

"Cool, how'd you…?"

Larrin was standing behind him, the computer console feeding the HUD directly to his mental image. Her reply was short and to the point.

"Interface it? Well, we're not the bumbling idiots you might think we are."

Sheppard made an annoyed sound with his throat.

"You know I wasn't going to say that. Well, not exactly that."

She snickered, and pointed out some of the systems on the main HUD in front of them, as she did so, she moved closer and eventually ended up directly behind him.

"We expanded the ship's memory core with the parts from another one; we formatted the new memory modules, and added our own programs."

"Cool."

Larrin pointed to the specific systems being displayed.

"See that? It's the new weapons systems. Those drones are powerful, but we can't build anymore of them. So we replaced the ones in here and installed our own weapons along with micro fusion generators so we don't burn out the ship's power source."

"Cool."

She giggled.

"That's all you're gonna say? A ship like this and all you can say is 'cool'?"

He grunted.

"Well it is!"

She 'tsk'ed him a few times, then pointed out some more modified systems.

"That's the new manoeuvring thrusters, we do a lot of mining in asteroid fields and even as quick as these things are, they could be better."

Sheppard nodded, understanding.

"How many gees can it pull?"

"Gees? Oh gravity… yeah we boosted the inertial dampeners as well, she can pull 30 but you don't feel a thing."

Sheppard let out a low whistle, 30 gees was reaching ludicrous amounts of inertia.

"This thing must be a hellcat to fly."

She snickered again, and ever so smoothly put her hands down on his shoulders.

He wasn't expecting it and tensed. She noticed and giggled.

"God Sheppard, lighten up. You're so _tense_."

Sheppard internally screamed in something akin to a surprised Homer Simpson as she started to rub his muscular shoulders and traps. This was _not_ what he was expecting.

The worst part was that he had no idea what kind of etiquette he should use. He didn't know if she'd take it as a compliment if he accepted it, or whether refusing it would start a blood feud. He finally understood what Sam was talking about when she said "_Cross Cultural Sensitivity Training_" or something along those lines.

So he did the only thing that made sense, he acted indifferent to it.

"Uhhh… ok…"

She snickered seductively again, and started to knead harder, working out whatever stress was in his neck and shoulders. It seemed strangely proper to Sheppard, she'd caused most of the stress he was feeling, it was only right for her to get rid of it. The thought made him smiled and chuckle. She whispered into his ear, her hot breath wafting over his neck.

"You like?"

The hairs on the back of his neck and leading down his spinal column all stood on end. He wouldn't be able to take much more of this without either going insane, or cracking into unbearable laughter. He decided to attack it head on to see if he could stun her into backing off.

"Yeah… so I guess this is the best time for you to tell me what you really brought me here for."

She kissed him behind his ear. His attack completely ignored.

"Isn't it _obvious_?"

Sheppard's throat closed, and he was glad it did as he did not want his thoughts coming out as words just now.

_"Craaaap."_

He must have missed the day in USAF Special Forces training that covered overcoming seductive interrogation techniques. He had absolutely no clue how he was going to get out of this in one piece or even with his dignity intact.

As if to emphasis just how quite literally screwed he was, Larrin seemed to coil around on the chair and slowly wrapped one, then two exposed legs around him. He kept his cool, trying not to burst right away… Obviously she'd been planning this for awhile.

She made a contented sound as she straddled him on the chair, completely indifferent to the fact that the windows were still clearly see-through. He couldn't help himself and let a small, almost imperceptible moan escape his throat.

_"Oh god… she's done this before… only way… to explain… ahhh…!"_

She licked her lips, and then in a very slow and seductive tone whispered.

"I _want_ you John."

His eyes grew wide; his mind completely stopped and did a hard reset.

"_Did she just call me… 'John'?"_

He sat there, with a very attractive woman squeezing his waist with her thighs, open mouthed, and quite literally speechless.

"Uhh..."

She giggled, and then shoved him deeper into the seat, rubbing his chest with her hands. She moved up onto his shoulders and cocked her head as she looked at him.

"No John… Not like that…"

She stopped and gave him a naughty look as she licked her lips.

"Well… _yeah_… _like that too_… but I want you on this ship."

He swallowed, still not comprehending what she was saying.

"Come again?"

She laughed and got an excited look on her face. She ever so gently started grinding on him.

"_Already_?!"

He mentally slapped himself for making such a stupid double entendre. He'd never been so glad to be wearing boxers in his life. She covered his mouth with her hand and shut out whatever he was about to say.

"Sheeepaaard… do I have to spell it out for you? I… want… you… to… join… my… crew…"

It took a moment for it to register with his mind; his thoughts were lost in a sea of teenage hormones. Seeing as how he was 38, he had no clue as to where they'd come from. Spoken language had left him as soon as he felt her right calf rub against his chest and he was reduced to Cro-Magnon levels of communication.

"Huuuuh?"

She leaned forward and pressed up close to him, he loved the feeling.

"Think about it… you'd love it here. You'd get to fly these ships, explore the galaxy, answer to no one, fight the wraith on your own terms… and well... _there's always_…"

She moved in, and finally pressed her lips against his. They were disturbingly sweet.

He didn't resist, at least not initially. In his mind he was screaming, beating himself over the head with an aluminum Festivus pole, he couldn't believe how hard it was to maintain a level head in this situation.

"So whaddya say Sheppard? I want you… do you want me… and this?"

The gods were making fun of him. That had to be it. That's why Larrin was on top of him grinding her hips, that's why her lips tasted so damned sweet, that's why his hands absentmindedly started rubbing her back eliciting a moan from her, and that's why he knew there was no possible way he could accept.

The punch line was, how the hell was he supposed to get out of this jumper with both of their dignities intact, and more importantly, his manhood still attached to him?

He kept neutral, not starting anything, not going any further than she was doing; it just felt too damn good to stop though.

"Mmmm…"

She kept rubbing up against him, now starting to pull apart his shirt, exposing his chest. She moved her head down to his chest and started to use her lips against his bare skin.

She wandered around there for a few moments, and then moved up his neck, making him shiver.

It was then that it finally arrived, maybe the Gods that loved tormenting him had enemies and they were helping him now. Larrin had grabbed the chain around his neck with his dog tags and they made a metallic clinking as she tried to pull it off him.

He took the opportunity, and even though they were both breathing heavily, they both had blood rushing to places they didn't talk about in public, and even though he was going to suffer the most acute case of blue balls he'd ever experienced… he grabbed her hand, and stopped kissing her.

They both froze, Larrin understanding what he was trying to say. It was so incredibly awkward Sheppard wondered why they weren't spontaneously combusting.

"I guess… you made your choice."

He didn't reply. He just nodded as he tried to catch his breath. She did the same, and after a few moments she tried to get up and off him.

He wasn't going to let her off that easily. He reached out and held her close to him, this time without the softness of a lover.

"Why?"

She didn't respond, she just gulped and looked at him, she tried to get free of his hold but he wasn't budging.

"Let me go."

"No. Not until you tell me."

She struggled harder now, not wanting to stay.

"My men'll kill you."

"I've been ready to die for 7 years. Try again."

She lashed out, hitting him in the collarbone trying to break his grasp; he grabbed a hold of her hands and held her in place. They fought for a few moments until she finally gave up, shaking from her repressed feelings.

"I _hate_ you Sheppard."

"You wouldn't be the first. But I'm not… letting you go… until you.., explain why."

Her mouth quivered, and he saw the glint of moisture build-up in her eyes, He released his grip a fraction, enough to stop hurting her. She still didn't say anything; Sheppard figured she was just lost as to where to start. So he gave her somewhere.

"You had to know I wasn't going to do it."

She swallowed, and finally spoke in a hushed tone.

"There was a chance… even if it was only a small one."

John let the breath he'd been holding in out.

"Still… you wouldn't do this unless… unless it was an emergency."

She nodded, and the tears finally came out of her eyes.

"I don't want to leave this… I'm so used to being free here in space. By gods you tell anyone this I'll make what the wraith do seem like a vacation…"

She sobbed softly, and Sheppard finally let her wrists go. He took a hold of her hands and gave them a gentle squeeze.

"Won't leave this jumper."

She smiled softly, but her tears still ran down her cheek.

"All my life Sheppard… I've been on ships all my life. And now it's all gonna change."

He sighed, pretending he understood.

"Okay…"

She sniffled, and then continued.

"After Asuras… some of our people started talking about colonizing planets again… actually starting to plan for it. The council decided to let them… using this ship as a test bed."

John finally understood, she was afraid of change.

"So you thought if you could get me to join you, you could convince the council that because I can fly this thing so easily… it shouldn't be the test ship."

She nodded, and then started chuckling to herself.

"Yeah… pretty stupid idea huh? But I had to try… even if it meant sweetening the deal like this."

She looked at herself, and John felt bad for her. She was willing to give herself up to him just on the very small off chance that he'd accept and join her. He let her go and she stood, facing away from him.

"Well don't get me wrong Larrin… you didn't exactly make it easy for me."

She turned, her seductive smile back despite her wet cheeks.

"No I didn't, did I?"

She giggled, and then sat back on the console; she swallowed and looked deep in thought.

"I don't want to lose this Sheppard… I don't want to get tied down to a goddamn rock in space when there's so much more out there."

John buttoned up his shirt, and finally calmed down enough for his breathing to go back to normal.

"So tell them that, Tell them you aren't ready to settle down and stay out there. You didn't have to plan this whole elaborate concept."

She shook her head and sniffled.

"You don't _get it_ Sheppard; I'm one of the council leaders! I voted against it but got overruled. I _have_ to be involved otherwise it'll shatter what little government we have. With you joining I could have had a bargaining chip…"

John really didn't see the problem with living on the ground, but he hadn't spent years living on a ship either.

"Would it really be that bad to live on the ground?"

She sighed.

"I guess not… it's just the idea that… even with this new ship my people need more space… for so long we've been out here, it's just hard to accept."

She looked over to him and her cheeks flushed.

"I'm… I'm sorry Sheppard, There I said it. I'm sorry I got you messed up in this… I guess I'm not exactly your favourite visitor anymore."

Sheppard laughed out loud.

"Are you kidding? You're the only visitor I get that actually lets me go after they've tied me up!"

She stifled her laugh, then gave up and started cackling alongside him. After a few moments of laughter, she finally calmed down and stared at him.

"So what? You've got someone else? You've been teasing me all this time?"

John's eyes went wide, the tension had completely evaporated and he didn't exactly like her turning the tables on him. There was as little chance of him telling her about Sam as there was of him joining her.

"Oh don't even start that, you have any idea how bad I'm gonna be hurting once I leave this jumper?"

She smiled, pleased with herself.

"Yep, and that's part of what's keeping me going right now, knowing you're not completely immune to me."

Sheppard scoffed, amazed.

"You never give up do you?"

She shook her head, grinning widely.

"Nope."

------------------------------------

Chuck was busy working on his computer, trying to figure out where a slight power drain was coming from. He'd tracked it down to one of the labs on the south pier and had a repair crew ready to go. He'd just isolated the exact position when the call came in from Sheppard.

"Atlantis, this is Sheppard come in."

He tapped the communication icon on the screen and answered.

"Colonel Sheppard this is Atlantis, over."

He heard Sheppard clear his throat on the other side, and speak softly.

"Chuck, I'm coming back in a few, Dr McKay is going to stay on board for another few hours to help the Travellers with some of their modifications… Uhh… is this a secure line Chuck?"

Chuck tapped another pair of controls on his computer, securing the signal and encrypting the carrier wave.

"It is now Colonel, no one's listening."

"Yeah… uhh… can you do me a favour and uhh… have someone put a bucket of ice in front of my quarters? On the down low?"

Chuck…. chuckled, and then replied.

"No problem sir, expecting company?"

He heard Sheppard's almost exasperated tone on the other end.

"No! No no no… I uh… I just need a shower… a really _really_ cold shower."

"Hahaha… no problem Colonel, I'll drop it off myself."

He heard Sheppard's sigh of relief and acknowledgement as the channel shut off. Chuck loved hearing gossip, but he hated being the one spreading it, so he wondered what people would say about Colonel Sheppard's request. Oh well, if it got out they wouldn't trace it back to him.

He ordered the repair crew to go, then turned around and waved to Amelia a few feet behind him.

"Hey! Amy!"

She looked up from her screen, and gave him a raised eyebrow.

"Yes Chuck?"

He got up and grabbed his jacket from the seat.

"Colonel Sheppard's coming back, he asked me to take care of something for him first though. Cover me for 10 minutes?"

She scrutinized him, whether he was just trying to get a cheap break or Sheppard had actually asked him to do something. She saw no hidden intent and nodded.

"Alright, hurry up, and if you pass by the mess bring me back something would you?"

He snickered, and nodded as he left the room, heading to the mess to grab the bucket of ice. Amelia was always just ever so slightly confrontational with him, maybe it was his laid back attitude that irked her, but he found her so hot when she was pissed.

-------------------------------------------

It was late in the day now, almost 6PM, Sheppard had gotten back an hour ago and after reporting in to Lorne to his surprise, he had barricaded himself in his room, not talking to anyone. Sam was in the mess, picking through her dinner with Teyla at the other end of the table.

"Colonel?"

Sam looked up, and smiled warmly.

"I told you Teyla, call me Sam, I hate being called Colonel, makes me feel old."

Teyla laughed as she took a sip of her drink.

"Very well… Sam… Will you be participating in any events tomorrow?"

Sam was distracted; she wanted to give Sheppard a little time to acclimate before she went to see him.

"Uhh… no, at least nothing planned yet. Since I'm the boss it's not that right for me to join in. People might feel compelled to give me the lead just because of that."

Teyla furrowed her brow.

"So your leadership is unchallenged? Not that I doubt you."

Sam smiled, and understood what Teyla was trying to say.

"Well… it's not that I'm unchallenged. There are always people who want your job. Especially since this is quite possibly the last relic of the Ancients still in operation. But as far as having to prove myself… No. the Air Force and IOA are very strict when it comes to the chain of command and promoting people so I'm not worried about proving that I'm worthy of my position."

Teyla furrowed her brow.

"Strange, I often saw with Dr Weir and Colonel Sheppard the struggles of maintaining their position. Often I would see the two argue with their subordinates over their decisions. I assumed such things were normal in order to ensure the strength of the clan."

Sam raised a brow.

"Clan?"

Teyla smiled, and caught her mistake.

"Yes… Sorry, I have been spending more time with my people and old habits are seeping into my vocabulary. I meant to say the command structure of this base."

Sam shrugged her shoulders.

"Well you're not exactly wrong. It's hard to get to a high rank in the Air Force and usually it means dedicating decades to it, and having very good records over the course of those decades. I'm sort of an exception because of my experience and familiarity with the Stargate Program. Though I do have good records"

Sam smiled slyly, admiring her own strange sense of humour. Teyla still looked confused.

"I am confused… was not Colonel Sheppard considered a misfit? How did he achieve his rank then?"

Sam furrowed her brow, and remembered the first time she met Colonel Sheppard at Cheyenne Mountain when the Atlantis Expedition first set out. He was a very different person back then.

"Well… it's sort of similar. Maybe back then he was misfit. But it's more a matter of perspective. I won't talk about it without him here, but… well… he made some decisions that were clearly John Sheppard. And the military wasn't too keen on that. But once he came here… those same decisions saved a lot of people. And it earned him respect from people in high positions."

Teyla sighed.

"It is difficult to be able to get an accurate impression of your people Sam; all I see here are your best and brightest. Both John and Rodney have frequently told me that it's not all like that back on Earth."

Sam nodded, depressed.

"Unfortunately, but if someone with Colonel Sheppard's record can become who he is now, I think we've got hope."

Teyla chuckled, and sipped more of her beverage.

"Yes, he certainly does liven up the place."

Both women continued chatting, and soon Teyla left to see to her son Torren and Kanaan. Sam stayed for a moment longer and decided to get it over with.

She reached his quarters quickly, and hesitated outside his door.

"_How the hell am I gonna figure this out? It's not like I can just ask him…"_

She took a deep breath, and then chimed the doorbell.

He heard a voice from inside, muffled.

"Who is it?"

"It's Sam. Are you busy?"

A moment passed. The sounds of shuffling came in.

"No no… come on in. the door's unlocked.

Sam took another deep breath in, and then opened the door. John had his back to her as he tossed some clothes into a hamper. He didn't have a shirt on, though thankfully he had a pair of BDU pants on.

"Caught me just out of the shower, I could sing some Johnny Cash if it'll make you more comfy."

She stifled a laugh, and covered her mouth.

"No no… that's… umm… that's alright."

He chuckled, and pulled a clean t-shirt from his dresser.

"You alright Sam? I heard you took a half day."

She sat down on the edge of table on the far side of his dresser.

"Yeah… just didn't sleep well last night… "

He stopped for a moment, seemingly understanding.

"Yeah… well… get a good night sleep tonight, I'm gonna need your help tomorrow."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? With what?"

He turned around and gave her his typical confident expression.

"Caldwell won't give us some 302's unless I'm flying one, so I need a good wingman and well… with Lorne flying a jumper, I need someone who's… well someone without a conflict of interest."

She snickered.

"Oh, and here I thought you just wanted my company."

He smirked.

"Shh… that's the ulterior motive."

She giggled in reply, and then nodded.

"Alright, I guess I did help build those things."

"That's the spirit!"

He turned around and pulled a BDU shirt from his dresser as he chuckled. Sam took a deep breath and decided to get it over with.

"So how was it up there?"

"Hmm? Oh the Travellers. Well they're good, McKay stuck around to take a look and see what we could learn from it."

She nodded, seeing through his evasion.

"And Larrin?"

John gulped quietly, he hoped she didn't hear.

"Well… she's in a nicer mood that usual. I didn't end up tied to a chair at least."

There was an awkward moment between them. John didn't face her, feeling guilty over what had happened. Her next words smacked him like a slap to the face.

"Are you sleeping with her?"

He kept control. She'd asked him calmly and he'd be damned if he lost his temper.

"Is this a professional question… or a personal one?"

She raised her voice just a tad.

"Would you be surprised if I said both?"

John took a moment. Then answered.

"No… and no. I'm not sleeping with her."

She closed her eyes, relieved, but now worried that he might be offended.

"John… I'm sorry… I just… *sigh* you have any idea how hard it is for me to…"

She couldn't word it exactly. John faced her, his expression blank.

"Date me? Yeah I get that a lot."

She got up off the table and took his hand.

"John… look… I haven't done anything like this in a long time… I'm just scared."

"Of me?"

She pulled even closer, and hugged him.

"Of us."

John didn't know what to say. He'd never seen Sam like this before.

"I guess I understand… look… you're not wrong okay? Larrin… she did have ulterior motives coming here."

He pulled on her, wrapping his arms around her.

"What'd she do?"

John held her head close to his, and whispered.

"Tried to get me to join her… fly the ship for her… "

He didn't need to say how she'd tried to coerce her. He knew she'd know.

"And you said no… any particular reasons?"

He leaned in and kissed her behind her ear, she moaned softly.

"Maybe a few…"

He finally smiled, and moved from behind her ear and along her chin, finally ending up on her lips.

"Mmmm."

They kissed for the first time, getting to know each other's backsides while doing it. John began to pull her in closer and he rubbed a little harder.

"Stay."

"Mmmm John… we can't… not now."

He chuckled.

"Do what? Watch a movie? I just got the new Futurama movie."

She giggled, and pushed him away slightly.

"I'm _sure_ that's all you want to do."

He made an injured expression.

"Sam, I just spent 30 minutes in a tub full of ice water. That's the last thing on my mind right now."

She snickered, and felt a bit more comfortable.

"Wow… I guess Larrin didn't make it easy for you."

"Don't remind me… Now come on, I got some popcorn and beer."

He picked her up, and paid little heed to her laughs and protests. He plopped down on the bed and continued to kiss her. She stopped resisting and laid her head on his shoulder as he picked up the remote and turned on the TV in his room. She snuggled up close and sighed contentedly.

------------------------------------

Lorne stood at the desk and sipped the coffee he'd made. It was still the original earth born coffee that McKay was after. Lorne had managed to hoard a good amount of it and kept some untouched in order to bribe the genius doctor if it came down to it.

The paperwork Sam had left him wasn't that challenging. After three years of dealing with Sheppard and Weir, he'd gotten plenty of experience with paperwork and felt that it wasn't hard anymore. He didn't know how long it would be, but he knew he wanted to go further than Major. Only time would tell how long that would take however.

"Major Lorne, you're needed in the control room."

He put the mug down, and yawned. It was late and the night shift was about to take over. He stepped out of Sam's office and saw Chuck working hard on the computer.

"What's the matter Serge?"

Chuck motioned with his head to the screen, where Larrin was sitting in the command chair of her warship.

"Major Lorne, Where's Sheppard and Colonel Carter?"

Lorne raise an eyebrow, and took a step closer.

"They're off duty; I'm in charge right now."

Larrin sighed, irritated.

"Well you'll have to do. It's concerning something Dr McKay told me before he left."

"Oh? And what gossip did he decide to spread this time?"

Larrin smiled, the same kind of smile Lorne had seen her give Sheppard. He suddenly felt very threatened.

"Something about "Olympic" something or other…"


	5. Travelling Olympics Part Three

**Travelling Olympics – Part Three**

**------------------------------------------------------------**

**A/N: **Argh… did I ever have writers block with this. And I think you can tell in reading it that it's rushed. But whatever, the main reason I thought it up was the seduction and vulnerable Larrin scene in part two, and having Lorne get his fair due in this. No more HJMS for awhile… mentally tired of this pair.

-----------------------------------------------------------

"Uhh… you okay there Colonel?"

Sam took her finger off the button for her radio and drove her elbow into John's face, not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to knock him back so he would stop poking her while speaking with Lorne. He reeled back cursing and fell off the bed taking the sheets with him.

"Yes! Yes Major… just caught me at an awkward moment."

John got up off the floor and rubbed his chin and nose. The sheets were covering his head like some kind of hooded robe.

"Ow…I'm gettin' college flashbacks here."

She stifled a laugh and tried to pay attention to Lorne. She made a mental note to thank Dr McKay for having installed a private radio frequency for command level transmissions.

"Alright Major… what's the situation?"

She heard Lorne clear his throat, and also felt John sit behind her with his head on her shoulder. He meticulously wrapped his arms around her, sliding his hands under her t-shirt. She prepared her right arm to deliver another strike if needed.

"Well sir… from what I've understood Dr McKay told Larrin about our scheduled Olympic events this weekend… and she's wondering if her crew can take some shore leave and participate with us."

John, having been eavesdropping on her shoulder, immediately flinched and had to resist yelling by biting his thumb. Sam was equally surprised but waiting a moment for John to back off, caught her breath and responded calmly.

"Okay… did she say anything else?"

John rubbed his face, already worried about what the next two days might entail. Lorne hesitated a moment, then muttered softly.

"Yes ma-am… when I responded and said you two were off-duty she suggested you two were involved in certain specific acts. Stuff I'd rather not repeat of course."

Sam bit her lip, if Larrin only knew how close she was. Lorne continued.

"She then implied that I was a eunuch, and I should make a decision like a man to rectify that situation. Thankfully she's no worse than any of the girls back home I've met so I put her on hold and she's been waiting for your reply… for about 5 minutes now."

Sam stifled another laugh. Lorne was always so no-nonsense when it came to important matters that he might give Larrin a run for her money.

"Good work Major… let's give her another 5 so I can think it over."

"Yes Ma-am."

She shut the radio off and turned her head back to Sheppard. He was lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. One arm and leg were hanging off the side. His voice was semi-defeatist.

"I take it it wouldn't be diplomatically sound to refuse them… especially after they pretty much gave us their weapons technology… would it?"

She shook her head and sighed as she fell back onto the bed as well, next to him.

"Unfortunately. But we did agree John… that this wouldn't affect our command decisions."

He sighed explosively, making obvious his frustration with the situation. Raising one hand he pumped his fist comically as his other pulled her close.

"Send in the fuckin' clowns."

She giggled, and then yawned.

"Mmm… I should be getting back to my quarters…"

As she tried to get up, John held her and whispered in her ear.

"You're not gonna stay?"

She loved the feeling of being so close to him, but her mind was still rational and she knew it'd be better for her to leave.

"No John… I want to, but I've got to deal with this Larrin thing and then I need to sleep. Besides, it's not much of a secret if people see me leaving your quarters at 6 in the morning."

John snickered.

"What if I say I'll only keep you till _two in the morning_?"

She grabbed the pillow she was on and used it to whack him over the head.

"Next time… And hopefully you won't give me the ice water bath excuse again."

John scoffed, feeling a bit offended.

"Tease."

She stuck her tongue out at him as she put her jacket back on.

"Womanizer."

He shrugged, and squeezed her butt eliciting a jump and cry of surprise from Carter.

"Meh, both good points."

----------------------------------

"What…? No… you… you can't… be serious."

Jennifer smiled and tried to look as shy and vulnerable as possible. She wasn't quite sure exactly what Rodney would do upon finding out. His look and stance of shock were only one of the many ways she thought he might react.

"I drank a fish?"

Jennifer nodded.

"Technically its coffee beans that were fertilized with fish remains. Sort of like Squanto's Fish."

He got up and looked into his coffee cup, mortified.

"Squanto, poncho, any kind of clothing, _I drank a freaking fish?!"_

She struggled not to laugh, and put her arm around him consoling him.

"Cheer up Rodney, I was going to wait awhile to tell you but I couldn't help it. It's much better for you than just regular coffee."

He interrupted, breaking away at supersonic speech speeds.

"How can it be better? It's a completely different molecular structure than the beverage I've been drinking for the past _lifetime_! We have no idea what kind of strange mutation it might cause in me to be drinking alien fish beans that…"

Jennifer couldn't take it anymore, her patience was thin to begin with and Rodney was just a bit too hysterical. Her shriek left everyone in the lab ducking for cover.

"_Meredith Rodney McKay!!!_"

Rodney flash froze; _never_ had Jennifer used his first name. The redness in her face was terrifying and he remained quiet. She calmed down a tad and spoke so only he could hear.

"You drink more coffee in a day than some people have in a lifetime. The difference between this and regular earth coffee is negligible and you wouldn't have realized it if I hadn't told you."

He raised his hand as if to speak but she silenced him with a stern look and pointing finger.

"No you listen! You complain of sore joints all the time especially after a mission. The omega 3's and fish oils that this particular brand of coffee offer will help to relieve that. Because as much as I enjoy seeing you, I _hate_ seeing you complain about things that can easily be fixed… but even more so, _IT TASTES THE SAME!!!!!"_

The entire lab was silent, Jennifer had gone from red faced, to pale, and back again during the chewing out of Dr McKay. Several technicians silently gave cheers and words of praise to Dr Keller for finally getting Rodney to shut up and take it.

Rodney was silent. He realized that perhaps he was taking it a bit too extreme for such a trivial thing, and just nodded without a word and got back to his fish coffee.

Jennifer felt horrible; it was moments like these, having to make a hard decision that made her question Dr Weir's decision to make her Medical Chief. She smacked her lips together and put her arm around Rodney's neck.

"I'm sorry ok?

He nodded, and sighed.

"I'm sorry too… I know you're just trying to take care of me… I just don't like sudden changes. I'll drink your liquefied fish beans if it means we can stop fighting."

Keller gave him a peck on the cheek, and then whispered.

"And if you're a good boy, I'll see what I can do about getting you a private supply of regular coffee… for you know… special occasions."

He smiled, and gave her hand a squeeze.

"I knew there was a reason I fell in love with you."

Just as they leaned in to kiss, Colonel Sheppard's voice shattered the romanticality of the moment with its brusque nature.

"Rodney! Put your fork down and lets get going!"

Keller snickered, and shrugged when Rodney gave her an offended look. He brushed it off and got up to meet with John.

"Sheppard! Just give me a minute."

John finally entered the specific room Rodney was in, he looked a little uncomfortable walking in his skin tight flight suit. Rodney couldn't help chuckling and motioned to him.

"Those your pajamas?"

John raised an eyebrow, and then grumbled.

"I'd like to see you wear one of these and look this good."

John turned around and took a few steps as if he were a model. To the side some of the female scientists started whistling and cheering him on. Rodney got _very_ flushed and grimaced.

"Oh quit it Sheppard. You're embarrassing yourself."

"Please, I know I'm beautiful."

Keller stifled a laugh and shook her head trying to keep control. Rodney got up quickly and grabbed Sheppard's shoulder.

"Oh god… Let's go before you do something that totally makes you look like a fool."

Sheppard chuckled as they left the lab, hearing the now free cackling of the scientists inside.

"Calm down McKay, that rod in your ass keeps you from having fun you know?"

Rodney made an unhappy sound.

"I know I know… but all the Travellers on the base are making me nervous…"

Sheppard grumbled, suddenly equally frustrated.

"You're telling me, I'm keeping an eye out for a lasso coming at me."

They reached the transporter, and McKay keyed in the pier where the first round of the Olympic racing would take place.

"Well I think you should know, Larrin and her second in command are gonna be flying their modified Jumper."

The transporter flashed, and Rodney opened the door, He took about 5 steps before realizing that Sheppard was standing inside the transporter with his mouth open in shock.

"Sheppard? You okay?"

"Larrin… is going to race?"

Rodney shrugged, oblivious.

"Uhh yeah. The Travellers have joined in most games we're hosting. Even some of their scientists are joining in for math stump. I'm hosting the qualifying rounds later today after the qualifying races."

Sheppard bowed his head, and muttered something under his breath. He then steeled himself, and started walking.

"Let's just get this whole thing over with… I'll be happy once they leave."

Rodney furrowed his brow, the creases in his forehead well worn.

"You okay Sheppard? Everything go… alright up there?"

Sheppard made an unhappy sound.

"I'll tell you someday, let's just leave it at 'I'll be happy once we're back to being the only humans here.' "

Rodney wanted to keep digging, Sheppard was good at hiding stuff but he'd find out… eventually. But for now he was more interested in spending the next few hours getting as many convoluted and overly complex questions ready for the scientist's games. He was going to follow Sheppard and bid him and Lorne good luck in their qualifying races.

So when he stepped out onto the pier, and saw Samantha Carter in the same skin tight flight suit Sheppard was wearing, the surprise on his face was quite evident.

"Wa… wait a second, isn't Lorne your co-pilot?"

Sam stepped forward; fully recognizant that she was making Rodney nervous.

"Nope, he asked me yesterday to fill in; I did help build these things you know."

Sheppard put his smartass smile on and chuckled.

"The fact that she weighs probably half of what Lorne weighs gives me that extra edge too."

Carter scoffed sarcastically, and threw a hard punch at Sheppard. It bounced off his shoulder and he chuckled, seeing Rodney's reaction.

"Oh come on, pick your jaw up off the floor. At least this way Lorne can fly on his own and have some of his own fun. Besides, who else has the gonads to put up with her for 2 hours?"

Carter gave him a murderous glare.

"Keep talking like that and your gonads are going to adorn my office in a jar… a very small jar."

Rodney shuddered, disturbed by how allured and terrified of her words he was.

"Freaks."

He turned and went over to where Lorne and Stackhouse were chatting with a few Travellers who had come to watch the takeoff. John leaned over and whispered to Sam.

"Nice acting, totally believable."

She gave him another punch, softer this time, but still with intent.

"I wasn't acting, you mess this up and I _will_ have your balls in a jar."

He turned an unbelieving smirk to her.

"Sam, I dated a dominatrix in college. Nothing could have prepared me better for whatever torture you get off on than that."

She bit her lip, trying to keep the mental image from making her laugh; she punched him yet again and tittered.

"Bastard, you're not gonna make this easy for me will you?"

He rubbed his shoulder where she hit him and smiled.

"Would it be any fun if I did?"

Her laugh now went across the pier, getting a few looks but nothing worth more than a second. Lorne and Stackhouse were prepping themselves for the qualifying round and were discussing the way it would work with the pair of Traveller spectators.

"This solar system has a few planets, and the nearest is going to be where we're holding most of the flight events. Our ship, the Daedalus, has mapped out a course for the slalom event. That's basically how maneuverable the pilot can fly. The other two start here, go to the planet, and then either run the maneuverability course, or come straight back. Pretty simple."

One of the Travellers grunted.

"What'll we win if we come in first?"

Lorne furrowed his brow.

"Good question… I know Colonel Sheppard ordered some trophies and medals, but would that be something you'd enjoy?"

The other Traveller chuckled but before he could say anything Larrin came up and joined the conversation.

"Oh I'm sure we can come to some form of agreement Major Lorne. I doubt Sheppard will want to take part, but maybe you can be convinced to give us some time."

Lorne smiled, he'd been expecting something like this.

"Well I'm not too sure about that, I'd hate to get _tied down_ to a single course of action."

Stackhouse stifled a laugh. Larrin instead took a step closer to Lorne and faced off against him. She gave him an intimidating smile.

"You saying my guys aren't as good pilots?"

"I'm saying I'm not gonna give any slack, even to those two."

He hooked his thumb over to where Sam and John were now climbing into the 302, laughing at some unheard joke. Larrin raised her eyebrows and made a suggestive tone.

"Ahhh… So that's why it's all snuggly wuggly around here. So where does that leave you Major?"

Lorne clicked his jaw, feeling slightly offended.

"Leaves me here, talking to the pretty lady with the big…mmmm… gun."

Stackhouse turned around and bit his finger. Lorne had almost slipped and said big "mouth".

Larrin opened her mouth, her shiny white teeth matched her wide eyes.

"Oh… seems I'm not the only one with a big… gun. Whaddya say we make this interesting?"

Stackhouse remained silent, He'd seen the tete-a-tete Sheppard and Larrin had, but Lorne was pushing it to new extremes.

"Oh? And exactly what did you have in mind?"

Larrin leaned forward and whispered into Lorne's ear. Lorne's eyes widened, and he leaned over himself to whisper in hers. She got an equally shocked expression on her face, and she licked the inside of her lips.

"Hmm… ok. Deal."

She held her hand out, which Lorne took and shook agreeing to their deal.

------------------------

"How you doing back there Carter, bored yet?"

Sam chuckled, and tapped a few buttons.

"Actually no, I had them install a few extra programs onto the system here, pretty much for reasons like this."

John made a confused noise with his throat.

"Hrm? What programs? What reasons?"

Sam snickered, and ported the feed from her computer to Johns screen in front of him.

"Take a look."

John leaned over, and saw dozens of equations and mathematical strings with blanks in them.

"Uhh ok. You're gonna spend the whole trip working on naquadah energy principles?"

Sam raised her eyebrows.

"You recognize this stuff?"

He shrugged, the harness making the movement harder than it looked.

"I may have looked over McKay's shoulder every now and again. But this trip is gonna take an hour, You're seriously gonna use all this time to do that?"

She snickered, and pressed a few more buttons.

"Well we could always do this…"

The screen in front of John changed again, this time showing the classic black and white pong from the 1970s. He laughed heartily and leaned his head back to look at her.

"You don't know what you just started…"

----------------------------------

Rodney stretched his arms, despite not having to do any physical work at all today other than walking around, he was unbelievably tired. The travelers had done surprisingly well in Math Stump and a few had qualified for the championship tournament tomorrow. In the meantime, all he wanted was to dive into his bed and sleep. The strange mathematical computations of the Travellers still boggling his mind.

He opened the door to his quarters, and found Jennifer inside tidying up. She turned and smiled at him.

"Hey Handsome, why the long face?"

She moved towards him and gave him a big hug, he reciprocated but sighed dejectedly.

"Those travelers are a handful. They don't know when to quit and most of my guys are tired of them already… Why'd they have to show up now?"

Jennifer snickered and took his jacket, in contrast to her tidying up, she flung the jacket onto a drawer nearby and started rubbing Rodney's shoulders.

"Hey, at least you didn't have a bunch of them coming to you for vertigo sickness. All that living in spaceships… ugh, it's horrible on your body when you set foot on dirt again."

Rodney made an exasperated noise with his throat and put his hands over Jennifer's hands.

"Yeah… and besides, most of them only made it into the qualifying rounds by luck. Hell even Zelenka was beating them on some stuff. And as far as I heard Sam and John qualified as well for their race."

Jen giggled, and made a face as she shoved him around.

"Those two needed this, we're gonna go and watch them tomorrow ok?"

McKay furrowed his brow as he stretched his neck around.

"Needed this? What are you talking about?"

Jen giggled, then moved forward to give McKay a kiss on the neck. He moaned contentedly and forgot all about Sam and John.

"Don't worry Rodney, focus on our side of the Olympics."

"Well it's getting ridiculous, at least it was just the qualifying rounds today… I can't imagine what it'll be like tomorrow."

Jennifer shushed him and led him to the shower.

"Take a bath, and come to bed, I'll make you forget about tomorrow…"

Rodney perked up, suddenly cheerful about his day.

"Uhh yeah… okay… that sounds…good…"

------------------------------

"You know, Rodney and me were watching the first season of Wormhole Extreme the other day, and I couldn't help but notice that one episode where the anti-histamine thing makes that Major Stacey broad get all hot and bothered over…"

Carter spun around and gave him a deathly serious glare. If looks could kill, John would be hanging off the edge of the cliff like the coyote. Lorne stifled a laugh at both her reaction, and the fact that Larrin sitting across from him was completely confused.

Carter cleared her throat, and leaned closer to Sheppard who was sitting across from her.

"Yes well… I seem to recall an episode in the 7th season that had an overly emotional Major named James Lambton being part of the Voyager squad sent to explore Elysium city, and how in exploring a place known as the Spire, he gets seduced by a very young and very buxom…"

Now it was Sheppard's turn to clear his throat. He'd forgotten about that.

"Uh yeah… uhhh… what I meant to say was… they're both very complex characters and you can't base all assumptions on them from just one specific episode…"

The group had long ago finished their qualifying races and were directly competing the next day. They had shared a late night dinner and were talking now, mostly out of courtesy for Larrin than anything else.

The group laughed, but Larrin looked at them like they were insane.

"So you people actually sit and watch stuff that's based on you, but not you, and think it's entertaining?"

Lorne shrugged and smiled.

"It's called plausible deniability, most of our world doesn't know about the Stargates so they do this sort of thing to throw suspicion off of us."

Larrin nodded as if she understood, She silently slid one of her feet in front of her and began to caress Lorne's calf while turning and looking at Carter and Sheppard. Lorne flinched slightly, but quickly regained composure.

"So those two characters are based on you two?"

Sam nodded, noticing Lorne looking a bit redder than usual. Sheppard nodded as well, if a little more abashedly. Sam decided to tease John a bit more, especially since Larrin was sitting next to him.

"Yes Larrin, they are. I'm sure I can get you a copy of the whole series so you can enjoy it just as much as we have."

Larrin seemed to jolt awake, almost as if she were excited about watching the show. Sheppard on the other hand realized right away that it was because Lorne had stealthily grabbed her foot she was using to tease him, and was massaging it with one hand while drinking his iced tea with the other. She looked disturbingly pleased as she spoke jerkily.

"Yeah… uhh… that sounds good Colonel… I'm sure… my people will appre… ciate it."

Lorne chuckled, and spoke softly.

"I'm sure they will."

-----------------------------------------------

Carter took a look around the passage, and then finally entered John's quarters. He'd left the door open waiting for her.

He was lying on the bed with a beer and some pepperoni on a platter. It looked suspiciously greasy.

"Uhh… did I miss something?"

From the laptop on the bed next to John, she heard a muffled voice screaming.

"_You cocksucker!!!"_

She watched on the screen as 2 big greasy looking guys outside a shed, listened inside, and then one got slammed in the face full force with the opening shed door. He flew back and screamed while the other big guy in black with the drink in his hand didn't even react. From inside, a nerdy looking guy with thick glasses and a string attached to his swollen mouth and the doorknob stepped out. He looked shocked and screamed.

"_Oh my god what happened?!"_

Sam giggled and listened as the big stupid looking guy yelled from off screen.

"_Bubbles! You just broke my fucking nose!"_

Both John and Sam started laughing as the opening credits started, and John motioned for Sam to hop in, which she promptly did.

"Oh god, what is this?"

John finished laughing and pulled her closer in a hug.

"Trailer Park Boys. Some crazy Canadian show Rodney likes. It's pretty funny actually."

She snickered and laid her head down on his shoulder. She leaned over and grabbed one of the pepperonis on the platter and took a chew out of it. She looked at it curiously for a moment then whispered.

"Why the greasy meat?"

John shrugged.

"Watch the show, you'll understand."

She kicked off her shoes and took her jacket off, tossing them into a drawer nearby. She cuddled up to John who nuzzled against her, kissing her softly.

"Eyes forward soldier, you're gonna have to explain what's going on with these 'dudes'."

John made a disappointed growl with his throat, then began to whisper the details of the show. The episode seemed insane as it involved a crazed puppet controlling the nerdy looking guy, and the stupid looking big guy getting high off contact cement and shooting at purple squirrels that would tell him to "fuck off". Sam especially liked the 'dirty dancing' references throughout the show.

Once they were done, Sam leaned over and pressed her lips against his. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, their bodies in full contact. She nibbled slightly at his ear but then whispered softly.

"John… there's too many people on base and I don't wanna risk this getting out…"

John sighed unhappily, and let his head fall back.

"Saaam…."

She sighed as well, it didn't make her happy either.

"Jooohn… don't think I don't want to… but we'd get in sooo much trouble… please… let's wait until Larrin and her people leave… and we get some actual privacy."

He got up and leaned his back on the headboard, Sam cuddled up to him as she tried to get more comfortable.

"Well… It's not like I don't understand Sam… I know we've got to be careful about this… but if that's the case then I think you should go to your quarters tonight."

She looked at him, almost hurt.

"What?"

He took a deep breath in, and leaned over to kiss her neck, he moaned softly and her body shifted from the delight. His soft whispers breathed hot air along her neck and shoulder that made her shiver.

"If you stay here tonight… I'm not responsible for what I do, and you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to…"

He stroked her body with his strong hands as he spoke, he took his time, describing in vivid detail and eloquent slow pacing the time he would take, the slow and gentle fire he would build in her body, blowing softly on it to feed it into an internal firestorm. Then he would stop, and leave her burning with desire until she couldn't take it anymore. Then maybe… just maybe after letting her turn to ashes would he finally take her.

She stayed silent throughout the entire description, almost 5 minutes. The flame he spoke of already starting, she understood what he meant and knew if she stayed it'd only be time before the firestorm he was building took over. She controlled her breathing and nodded, being very deliberate as she got off the bed and took a few deep breathes.

"You're right John… I'll.. I'll see you for breakfast tomorrow…"

She put her boots back on, and buttoned up her jacket. John got up as well and despite obviously being excited, he was going to send her off.

She stood before the door and hesitated before opening it. John took the opportunity to put his hands on her shoulders and kiss the hollow of her traps. She moaned softly and put her hand in his hair, stroking the back of his head.

She let it go for another few seconds before finally pushing him away. She turned and put her back to the door. Her voice was desperate, a last resort.

"Tomorrow. I swear. Like rabbits."

John scoffed to hide his laugh, but nodded.

"Like rabbits."

He moved closer and put his arms on the door around her. She didn't know whether to feel threatened or excited and the confusion only made her sweat even more. She swore she could taste his pheromones on the vapor of his sweat and needed to get out of there.

John noticed the worry in her eyes and forced himself to wave the door open, he turned quickly and faced away from her. His heart firing like an automatic rifle, he could sense Sam stand there for a few moments before finally leaving his quarters, the door quietly shutting.

Sam leaned back against the door, putting her hand to her collar, airing herself out a bit. She then wiped the sweat off her brow and decided she'd need a cold shower if she had any hope of going to sleep tonight. She also assumed correctly that John was about to do the same.

---------------------------------

"Welcome spectators, both Traveller and Atlanteans, to the final race of the first ever Atlantis Olympic Events!"

Chuck was emceeing the event, and dozens of people had shown up to watch the four qualifying teams in their competitions. Most of the other events had already been finished and the Travellers had held their own and won a few games, much to the surprise of the expedition members. Overall it had been a very fun time for all those involved and many expedition members now considered the Travellers good friends.

John and Sam stood in front of the 302 Caldwell had loaned them, they felt a little awkward from prior night, but neither wanted to loss the event and were focused.

"So before the race actually begins, we'll give a little background on each of the racers! Standing to my left, with the spiky hair and now angry look like he wants to kill me, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard!"

The crowed applauded even as John shot the said look at Chuck, then started laughing. He motioned his head over to Carter and Chuck got the hint.

"And standing beside our illustrious commander, is his lovely co-pilot, the radiant ass kicking machine who bosses us around all day… Colonel Samantha Carter!"

Sam stifled her laugh and covered her mouth in embarrassment, the crowd cheered again, and a few catcalls and wolf whistles were heard as well. Once the commotion ended, Chuck spoke again.

"Our esteemed leaders are going traditional, and are flying the Earth Built F-302 space superiority fighter. Looks like a blade and it's got the bite to back it up!"

The crowd murmured, impressed with the ship. Chuck continued and went to the next team.

"And now, for those who don't reside in these parts, here's your leader, the oh so spunky, the oh so luscious… Larrin!"

Larrin gave Chuck a confused glance.

'_What the hell does 'spunky' mean?'_

She shrugged it off and gave a few waves to the crowd, her people went crazy and cheered… loudly. A few more wolf whistles were heard and she started extending her chest out, and pushing up on one leg to show off her curves. The crowd got even louder and the marines who were spectating gave thanks to whatever gods they believed in.

Chuck, finally getting a little annoyed, whistled into the microphone and got everyone's attention. Once some semblance of calm had returned, he continued to announce the teams.

"And over there, with the heavy muscles and face that reminds me of my dad…"

Lorne smiled, and gave Chuck the finger as he laughed.

"Oh yeah, he's definitely some kind of clone of my dad. But he's not him, and his name is Major Evan Lorne!"

The crowd cheered politely, and a few female screams that were a little too high pitched to be deemed polite. Lorne soaked it all up and enjoyed it for the time it lasted.

The other competitors were other Atlantis personnel, but for the most part they were people who had qualified for just racing and doing decently.

John turned to Sam and clicked his jaw. He'd taken a look at the qualifying times of the night before and wasn't feeling too great.

"Sam, Sam!"

He stealthily poked her to get her attention, which she quickly defended against by slapping at his hand.

"Ow! Stop it. What? What is it?"

He leaned against the wing of the 302, and quietly made his case.

"I took a look at the times for the qualifying races, and I don't think we can win if we do the same thing again."

Sam made an annoyed sound.

"Yeah I saw that too, I've got an idea and I was going to tell you once we were in the air… since you're so impatient apparently…"

She regretted it as soon as she said it.

"Well fine. Save it for when we're in the air."

He turned away and ignored her. She knew it was her fault but he didn't have to be such a jerk.

A few more minutes passed, and Chuck finally announced that the race was about to begin. Silently, Sam and John took their positions, unlike the other contestants who were quite verbal as they lifted off the ground.

---------------------------------

"I'm just saying, you don't have to hold a grudge… I'm sorry and there's nothing else I can do."

John made an annoyed grunt, it wouldn't be long before they reached the planet where the slalom part of the course would begin and they'd have to stop talking.

"I'm not holding a grudge, but you have to admit, this is a pretty weird relationship we're having."

Sam made the same annoyed sound, the tension between then was growing and it was starting to affect their relationship.

"I can't do anything about that John. If it's so frustrating maybe we should just forget it."

John took a moment to control himself, then he shut off the engines and brought the 302 to a halt. Sam did a quick check, and saw that it was him who had shut the systems off.

"John… What are you doing? We're almost to the slalom part!"

"Fuck the race, We're talking about this now."

She got angry, which she didn't like to feel. It angered her to no end that he could bring all these feelings up in her.

"What are you crazy? Start the engines! We'll come in last and everybody's gonna question us!"

John locked her out of the systems, and turned his head around to look at her.

"I don't give a damn about them Sam. But I do give a damn about us and I'm not moving another inch until we work this out."

She took a moment to try and crack his encryption, with another minute she could probably do it, but he was being incredibly adamant. So she relented and crossed her arms.

"Alright, talk then."

-----------------------------------

"What do you mean? Are they out of fuel or something?"

Marks shook his head, and directed the scanner back to them.

"No Sir, just looks like they shut off their engines and are free floating. Most of the others have already passed them."

Caldwell furrowed his brow; he was _not _expecting something like this.

"Radio them, see if they need any help."

Marks nodded and sent the radio call, he got back an automated message that made him gasp in shock.

Caldwell noticed, and questioned Marks.

"What? What is it Major?"

Marks clicked his tongue, wondering whether Caldwell would like the news or not.

"Uh well… Sir they're transmitting USAF code 243…"

Caldwell tried to recall the specific code, he hadn't heard that specific one in ages. Marks, not wanting to show him up tried to explain it in the least offensive manner possible.

"It's a standard frequency for Special Ops teams sir, Most people never get to hear it. It's a non-response transmission indicating the ship or squad is on a higher priority mission and cannot return communications."

Caldwell's eyes grew wide.

"You mean Sheppard just told me to shove it?"

Marks shrugged, and tried to look smaller.

"In a way sir."

"Goddamit! Move us in Major, Tow them in with ropes if you have to!"

The Major quickly inputted the coordinates and pulsed the sublight engines, it would take 4 minutes to reach the 302 and he didn't like what might happen to Carter and Sheppard.

So he was mildly surprised and a bit elated that about a minute away from contact, the 302 suddenly engaged it's main rocket engine and pushed towards the slalom section of the course.

"The hell is Sheppard doing? He'll never catch up to them now."

---------------------------------

"Sam, I sure as hell hope this works…"

Sam kicked the seat in front of her, and held her hand out to John, he took his hand off the control and gave her hand a tight squeeze over his shoulder.

"Trust me John, just get through that slalom as fast as you can and get ready for a rough ride."

He nodded, and smiled. He wanted to get this over as fast as he could and already had an idea of what to do once he was back on the base. He pushed the engines to full and began the slalom.

The course was meant to be relatively safe, the giant ice boulders around were actually quite brittle, and it was unlikely that even crashing into them head on would damage either the 302 or the jumpers enough to cause critical damage.

"Hold on Sam, this might get messy."

He pushed the thrusters to their limits, skimming mere feet away from the ice boulders as he piloted through, the inertial dampeners pushed to the limits.

It took only 3 minutes to pass the long ice slalom, the 302 now dragging clouds of icy mist as it exited the ring.

"Your turn Sam, time to catch the Hail Mary train."

"More like the Newton's train of gravitational doom."

Sam took over the controls and instead of turning the ship towards Atlantis, she turned the 302 to the planet and hit the engines to full power.

"John… I'm only guessing here, but we might have to hold 4 or 5 gees continuously if we want to catch up to them."

John gave her a thumbs up, and mumbled under his breath, though sure Sam would hear.

"Actually, I'd say more like 6 and half gees. But do it Sam, if I can have you _and _the gold, then I'm willing to suffer a little."

Sam laughed, and was glad that Sheppard had been such a hardass on her. They'd worked out a plan and she wanted to get back to Atlantis _now_.

By using the planet as a gravitational boost, they were going to slingshot around to reach a very high speed. Hopefully enough to catch up to the other 5 ships that were already a third of the way back to Atlantis.

The catch was that the 302's inertial dampeners weren't as strong as the ones on the Jumpers, and they'd have to endure almost half an hour of high gravity against the back of their craft. Both were seasoned pilots and used to pulling high gees, but for a long period of time it was possible they could black out.

They both agreed that it was better then coming in dead last, and the speed was starting to pick up.

----------------------------------------

"Say _WHAT_?!"

Rodney was fuming; Amelia was at the control room and relaying the information to the giant projector screen. And now, not only had Sheppard stopped and held for almost 5 minutes, but now he was slingshotting around the small gas planet and going to near dangerous speeds.

The betting rings below on the pier were in fumes, a lot of people had bet on Sheppard and the odds kept on changing as the race went on.

Jennifer on the other hand was pale, when the Jumper had stopped she got very worried and was pacing for awhile. She wouldn't tell Rodney why and used "Doctor Patient Confidentiality" as an excuse, which only increased his curiosity and pestering. When the ship started moving again, he lost his curiosity in why they stopped and now was more interested in why they were moving so fast.

"I'm telling you sir, if they keep that speed up they'll catch up and depending on what the others do, they might just win."

Rodney rubbed the sides of his face.

"It's Sheppard… he must have convinced Sam to go along with this and now he's gonna make me lose my bet…"

Jennifer furrowed her brow, then gave Rodney a hard look.

"You bet _against_ Sam and Sheppard?! What's the matter with you!?"

She shoved him gently, which he easily resisted. He shrugged.

"Have you seen the Jumper Larrin modified? I'm surprised she's not back here already!"

Jennifer growled in his direction, and then stomped off. Rodney felt bad, but there wasn't much he could do but prepare his wallet for a significant injury. Both in his bet, and buying Jennifer enough flowers to take him back.

---------------------------------

"Sam… You ok back there?"

John's voice was strained, the back of his flight suit was at full pressure and it felt very uncomfortable.

"Yeah… just a little light headed."

"Well hold on, we're about to catch up to the others… Looks like Lorne and Larrin are neck and neck.

He stretched out his right arm, felt like he was bench pressing a small car, and managed to tap the map control.

The HUD popped up for them both, with the 5 other jumpers battling for their places. Most were in a very narrow column, and Lorne and Larrin's jumpers were literally beside each other, getting closer and closer to try and goad the other into turning, and losing forward velocity. They were literally a few feet away from each other, and John was expecting them both to be shaking their fists at each other.

"Sam… how much fuel do we have left for the main rocket?"

Sam brought up the fuel gauge, and made an unhappy sound.

"Not a lot, we'll have to use the aerospike engines to slow down once we hit Atmo. You aren't thinking…?"

"Oh yean, and I'm gonna break up those two love birds up there. See if I can give Lorne an advantage…"

Sam laughed, she still couldn't believe that she'd missed Lorne and Larrin's incessant flirting. She blamed it on being occupied with John. But now with that knowledge, they had a plan. And with any luck it wouldn't be much longer.

"Coming up on number 5… he's not budging."

"Shave em then! Come on John, I know you love flying this thing."

John chuckled, and gently tapped the attitude thrusters, he made a best guess and passed by Stackhouse's jumper with only 5 feet between them. He could swear he saw Stackhouse give him the finger as he cruised by.

And so he continued, pulsing the main rocket engine and attitude thrusters, treating the other jumpers as if they were obstacles on a slalom. Until finally only Larrin and Lorne were ahead, and only about 30 more seconds of space until they hit the finish line.

"Ready Sam?"

She kicked the back of his seat signaling yes, and he pointed the ship to the small space between the two jumpers. He opened the com to both jumpers and muttered.

"Hey, You guys might wanna duck."

He raised his fist and made a forward movement. Sam caught the signal and pumped the last of the rocket fuel into the engine, and felt the pressure on her body increase as the 302 pushed even faster and harder than it was meant to.

"Don't turn hard John! The wings won't take the strain!"

He tried to nod, but the gee forces were making it hard to even breath properly. He kept a hand on the joystick and gently eased the narrow 302 in between the 2 jumpers, both which moved away from each other.

John had purposefully pointed the cockpit towards Larrin's ship, and now with her plain in view, he waved to her. The movements he saw from inside made him laugh, but he had to stop as it hurt to laugh under the intense gravimetric forces. The finish line up ahead was coming up fast.

-----------------------------------

The crowd was going insane, several fights had broken out and somehow alcohol had gotten in the mix. With Major Teldy in charge of base security at the moment, she decided a demonstration was in order.

She got up on stage and pointing the handgun out to the ocean, fired off 5 successive shots.

The loud bangs managed to calm the crowd, everyone suddenly rapt at attention. She took the microphone from Chuck and calmly, with an intimidation that none knew she had spoke.

"Thank you. Now the next person who throws a punch is gonna have plenty of time to practice in the brig. And that's if I don't just toss you off this pier to cool you off in the ocean!"

The crowd calmed down, She seemed serious. Chuck took back the mic and pointed up to the screen.

"Well, now that you're all settled it looks like the race is about to finish. Seems like Lorne is taking the lead with Sheppard and Larrin right on his tail. Wow this is incredible!:

The crowd built up again, but mindful of Teldy and her squad of completely sober, and completely hardcore marines around the pier. The screen showed the neck and neck race going forward. Now only seconds away from ending.

Despite the warnings, the crowd erupted into chaos as the screen flashed as the racers passed. Lorne had won by a little more than a foot with Sheppard and Larrin literally tied. The fact that there was a temporal tie meant that a good amount of the bets were now completely moot and the poor Air Force Captain who had started it was now under verbal assault from dozens of betters.

Rodney shook his head and sighed. Why did this always have to happen?

----------------------------

"Come on! We can't let anybody see us!"

Sam nodded and followed, keeping her head low. They'd landed the 302 on the opposite pier to avoid the masses, and were now heading to Lorne's Jumper that had landed with them according to the plan.

Lorne came out, looking incredibly pleased with himself.

"Boo ya! Damn that felt great!"

Sheppard and Sam crept to him, something he found a little strange.

"Uhh you guys alright? Want me to call the medics?"

"No! No no no… we need your jumper. Sam, mind prepping it?"

Sam nodded, and almost leapt into the jumper to get it restarted. Lorne was _seriously _confused.

"Sir? The hell is going on?"

Sheppard pulled Lorne aside, and laid out his plan quickly.

"Look Evan, I trust you, Sam trusts you, and I know what you've got planned with Larrin. Make sure to take a picture of her in whatever outfit you're gonna have her wear. I won't tell anyone as long as you don't tell anyone me and Sam are running off with this jumper for a few hours. Deal?"

It took a few seconds for the words to fully digest in Lorne's brain. So many questions he had, but he knew better than to ask them, and instead trusted the excited looking man in front of him.

"Uhhh ok. No problem sir. And she's gonna wear a school girl outfit FYI."

Sheppard cackled, feeling vindicated.

"You're the best Evan, do me a favor and accept our medal for us would you?"

Before Lorne could protest. John jumped back and into the jumper, closing the hatch behind him. He did manage to ask one last question.

"Alright.. Sir!? What do I tell them about where you're going?"

John took a second, the aft hatch now almost obscuring him, he leaned upwards and yelled just as the hatch closed.

"Say we're having a team building opportunity!"

Lorne finally cracked, his laughter drowned amidst the sound of the Jumper's engines powering up and lifting off the pier.

Sheppard hopped into the pilot's seat, Sam sitting next to him, the tension between them was almost visible in the air and Sam had to speak.

"Second place… damn. At least it was Lorne."

He turned to look at her, the glint in his eyes unbelievable.

"Far as I'm concerned, I'm the only real winner today."

Sam was so excited, this was the same as stealing a parent's car with her rebel boyfriend. She loved the idea Sheppard had given her of just being friends with benefits until more time was availible.

"Just go Flyboy!"

A moment later the cloak engaged and the two leaders of the Atlantis expedition finally had the privacy they wanted.

Lorne on the other hand combed his hair with his fingers, he had to somehow put together a schoolgirl outfit for Larrin as his rightful prize.

"Damn I love this Job."

--------------------------

A/N2: i was gonna write something a bit more explicit near the end, but meh, just imagine a cloaked jumper floating off the pier and Sam and John doing greasy things inside.

I'm marking this complete for now, i _might_ (and i stress that word) add some more later if i think of something funny.


End file.
